


a blank slate

by EssayOfThoughts



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gaslighting, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Manipulation, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mindwiping, This has a happy ending I promise, well. sorta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-08-28 07:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 21,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8437351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: He’s one of only two to survive the experiments. They put him in a room with her, the only other one to survive. Her hair is lank and dark, skin pale, wrists bony, eyes glowing scarlet over sleepless bags.“You are the other one,” she says, her voice a hoarse croak. “What can you do?”





	1. Absence is present

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TobermorianSass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TobermorianSass/gifts).



> So a lot of this plot is from the trashbrain of my wonderful, brilliant, fantastic friend [TobermorianSass](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TobermorianSass) so if you have pain to report please address your complaints to them. Chapter titles are from John Donne's [_Present in Absence_](http://www.bartleby.com/40/176.html), kindly linked to me by the wonderful [malapropism](http://archiveofourown.org/users/malapropism).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things!  
> \- You can find a list of songs I listened to while writing in the endnotes of this chapter.  
> \- I hope to update at the least weekly until the fic is done - 7 chapters is the current estimate, it may be longer. Chapter length will vary a lot.  
> \- I like comments! I like them a lot. Please leave some.

Lights swinging like pendulums, dizzying his mind. He needs to run, needs to _move,_ but he’s strapped down. He has to move, has to get away, get to _someone_ , but he doesn’t know who.

Someone gone.

The lights keep swinging, dizzying. He closes his eyes but with the darkness of the room he can still make out the swishes of light.

His head hurts.

“Sleep,” a voice tells him, and he does.

 

* * *

 

He’s one of only two to survive the experiments. They put him in a room with her, the only other one to survive. Her hair is lank and dark, skin pale, wrists bony, eyes glowing scarlet over sleepless bags.

“You are the other one,” she says, her voice a hoarse croak. “What can you do?”

He glances to the man in the corner, waits for his nod before relaxing into his blue. He blurs across the room and back again in a split second.

In the centre of the room she laughs. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, that will be enough.”

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t know what it’s enough _for._

 

* * *

 

She’s … doing _magic_ when next he sees her. Scarlet dances around her hands, from her eyes and right before him a rifle is torn to pieces.

“That is what you can do?” he asks.

She nods, half-smiles. “Amongst other things,” she says. “Come. We are learning together today.”

 

* * *

 

She seems to… know, ahead of time, what the doctors and soldiers plan for them. Sometimes she even seems to know what he’s going to say, answers his unspoken questions.

“Who are you?” he asks, one day. They are outside in the woods, practicing their powers and he’s just caught her hand lest she decapitate a guard. “What… what should I call you?”

Her eyes - red and piercing, filled with some ineffable, absolute certainty - meet his before flicking out to the guards they are trying to evade. “They call me Witch,” she says. “They call you Silver.”

“Those aren’t names,” he says.

Her eyes flick back to his. “No,” she says. “But I lost my name when I lost my brother.”

 

* * *

 

She - he refuses to call her _Witch_ \- is silent for several days. She works well in silence, steps so quietly he cannot hear her at all. He doesn’t mind the silence. It gives him time to think, if anything, to ponder her words and her purpose and her power.

He doesn’t know how to tell her that he’s lost a sibling too.

 

* * *

 

But then, he supposes, she always seems to _know._

“It’s why they like us,” she says one day. They are perched on the roof of the castle, watching the sun set behind the mountains. She leans against a slab of wall, picking at a loose piece of thread on the knees of her grey scrubs. “HYDRA. We have lost things, had things taken from us.” She picks the thread free, sets it loose in the wind. “Things we want but can never have back.”

His mouth is dry as he asks, “What was your brother’s name?”

She’s quiet, lips pursed slightly. Her hair - long and loose still, he doesn’t know why they don’t make her cut it - is blown by the building wind into her face. “Pietro,” she says, eventually. “Your sister?”

He does not ask how she knew as he whispers, “Wanda.”

 

* * *

 

These names become secrets between them, secrets they carry and know and don’t say to anyone else. The guards and doctors call them Witch and Silver and they answer to those. He hasn’t named her yet, in his mind, and somehow he think she hasn’t named him either. They are nameless, unknown, lost without their siblings.

“We could rely on each other,” he suggests one day, carrying her towards an objective and she shakes her head.

“And lose more?”

He sees her point, but it pains him.

 

* * *

 

“Your sister died.” That is what the doctors told him. “Your sister died.”

Not how, nor why, nor when. “Your sister died.”

He wonders if she was told something similar.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes he remembers things. Or maybe they’re dreams, he’s not sure. He knows that Wanda is gone, and that Wanda is everything and that he’s continuing because it’s what Wanda asked of him. He doesn’t know what Wanda looked like, anymore, though, or what her voice sounded like. He wonders if that was the cost of his life - her life, and his memories of her.

“Your brother,” he asks her, one day. “Do you remember him?”

She dodges a bullet, curls scarlet around it and sends it back from whence it came. “I did,” she says as he scoops her into his arms. “I don’t. But I can’t do nothing at all.”

 

* * *

 

He still doesn’t know how she knew to answer his unasked question ( _how do you go on?)_ but it doesn’t matter. She _knows._ She always _knows._

More than that, he thinks some days. She _understands._

 

* * *

 

He wakes from a nightmare, one night, to find her stood at the foot of his bed. Her eyes are as scarlet as ever, the colour dancing too around her hands.

“Let me help you,” she says, sitting on the edge of his bed even as he shuffles back, leans away. The scarlet stretches from her hands, reaches towards him and- “It won’t hurt you,” she says. No, he realises. She _promises._ “It will only help.”

The scarlet touches him, and feels like the touch of a ghost. Her hands press gently through his hair, comb it back from his face. “Sleep,” she suggests. “You will have only good dreams while I am here.”

 

* * *

 

He dreams of his sister. He can’t see her face, but he could never see faces in dreams. It’s his sister though, his Wanda. He _knows_ that fact, and does not need to see her face to know it is her. He remembers her laughing, tugging on his hands, leading him down streets to a house with a red door. He remembers feeling happy.

When he wakes, she is there.

Her hands brush gently through his hair, but there’s no scarlet this time. His head is in her lap, he realises, and he can see her eyes, shining scarlet still, looking down at him.

He reaches a hand up to touch her cheek. “Did you sleep at all?”

She recoils from his hand at first, just as he’d recoiled from hers, but leans into it once he touches her. “I don’t sleep,” she says. “I can’t. Everyone is too loud, too bright.”

He frowns at that, does not know how to parse it into sense and she sighs, lifts one scarlet-wreathed hand.

“I can move things,” she says, “Amongst other things.”

He brushes his thumb over her cheek, lets his hand drop. “Other things,” he says. “Like last night?”

“Like last night.”

 

* * *

 

They don’t need words much. He almost finds it odd except that it isn’t. It’s perfect. They can work perfectly in tandem, don’t need to speak to know. She always _knows_ and he has learned to look to her, to trust which way she leans, which way she watches. They work in perfect silence and keep words for when they’re free of watchers.

“We’re never truly free,” she whispers one evening. His head is in her lap again, her fingers combing through his hair, but she hasn’t touched his mind with scarlet yet, helped him to sleep and brought out memories of his sister. “There’s always people watching or trying to watch. They observe, I can _see_ it. Curiosity and fascination and disgust. We’re little more than lab rats to them, except instead of cheese they offer us vengeance.”

He lifts his hand, cups her cheek. She leans in readily now, no longer recoils, just as he no longer shies away from her scarlet hands. They know each other, now, trust each other. Take from each other whatever slight comfort is offered.

“We don’t have our siblings anymore,” he whispers. “We cannot have them back.”

“No,” she agrees, hands stilled on his scalp, apart from the slight strain where they tug at his hair. “But we can trust each other. Take our vengeance from them.”

Her eyes are still darting, flickering here and there over blank walls, looking at the minds beyond. The bags beneath her scarlet eyes are so shadowed as to make her face look skeletal, and he does worry so for her, seeing so much, hearing, unable to sleep.

“Rest,” he says to her, rising slowly, taking her face gently in his hands. “You must rest. Rest and be strong enough to take vengeance for your Pietro.”

Her eyes are like fire as they bore into his. “I cannot-” she whispers, but he can see the tears of tiredness beading.

“You must,” he says. “Even if it is impossible. We have to be strong enough.” He pauses, watches her eyes as they start to close, as her head tilts forward, her brow pressing to his shoulder. “For those we lost,” he murmurs.

“For those we lost,” she murmurs back, and he can feel her lips moving through the thin cloth of his grey scrubs where they press to his collarbones.

“Rest,” he murmurs, and stretches out beside her as she starts to lie down. He makes his mind think peaceful thoughts, in the hope that that might help her, and only closes his eyes once he feels her breaths even out to the calm slow pace of sleep.

 

* * *

 

“What do you think,” she asks one day, and he is so startled to hear her ask first that he almost drops her, “they would think of us now, our siblings?”

He adjusts his grip, holds her closer to his chest. They are nearing their objective, so he must think quickly, speak quickly, before they cannot speak at all.

“I do not know,” he says, “what your Pietro would think.”

“And your Wanda?”

He pauses, considers. “Proud,” he says, “That I have lived on without her.”

He can see from her expression that she wants to ask about that, speak on that, but they have reached the place, slowed to a halt. She takes a breath as he sets her down, and he knows she has refocussed on the mission.

 

* * *

 

 _“Unnatural,”_ he hears whispered sometimes from the doctors.

 _“Wrong,”_ he hears from the guards.

He doesn’t know what they are talking about - doesn’t particularly care, to be honest, it doesn’t matter to him in the least - but he makes a point to ask List about it at their next check up. She is sat beside him on the cot, her hand in his, her thumb pressed to his pulse.

For a moment _something_ flickers across List’s face before it smoothes out. “No,” he says. “I do not know what they are speaking of. I shall have them removed.”

Her hand tightens in his, though, and he knows something is wrong.

 

* * *

 

“They’re hiding something,” she whispers to him that evening. They’re pressed face-to-face on his narrow cot - the only way he can get her to sleep now is if it is curled against him; she wakes in a moment if he leaves, and he dares not disturb her sleep, rare as it is - and her eyes are bright scarlet and terribly worried as they watch him. “I don’t know what it is _but they are hiding something.”_

He does not know what it could be either, does not know how she is so certain but he does know one thing.

She has never been wrong yet.

 

* * *

 

The doctors and guards are replaced. The whispers cease. List sees them more rarely, and she says that his reason (“You do not need check ups as regularly now”) is strictly speaking true, but not the only reason.

 

* * *

 

It is she who kisses him first, her lips pressed fleetingly to his cheekbone before a job. He does not know what to make of it, at first, so he does not let it bother him until they are back in his cell, her hands cupping his cheek, her thumb running over the spot she kissed.

“Sometimes,” she says, “For a moment-” she shakes her head. “You are all I can trust in, now. You are the only one who is always honest.”

When she tucks against him to sleep that night it takes her far longer than usual to find rest.

 

* * *

 

“Why do they send us on these missions?” he asks her one day. He’s running through woodland and mountains with her bundled in thermal blankets in his arms so the cold cannot touch her. They can’t afford to let the cold touch her; if her fingers are too stiff to move she cannot do her job, and of them both she is the more powerful. He ferries her places, protects her from things too fast for her to handle. She does everything else.

He can feel her fingers pressing against his arm through the blankets though, still bony even after this time. He doesn’t expect her to reply now, not with them already sprinting so fast, when her words may be taken by the wind, but she does, if not in the way he expects.

 _Because they want these things done,_ her voice says in his mind. _We are simply the tools they use._

He shifts his grip on her slightly, lets his lips press close to her ear so his words can be undoubtedly heard.

“You do not mind that?”

 

* * *

 

“We are tools,” she says when they finally stop. “No more or less. But we are not only _their_ tools. We are our siblings’ tools too. The tools of our vengeance against the world which drove us to the experiments, which took our siblings from us.” She looks at him, eyes bright scarlet and deadly and it strikes him that he does not know what colour her eyes were before the scarlet of her hands filled them. “We are more than just ourselves,” she says. “We can shape the _world.”_

 

* * *

 

Being a tool for his Wanda, for her vengeance, is not a terrible idea to him. The idea that doing these things - horrible or not - might be doing what she wants…

He doesn’t remember enough of her to know what she’d want. But he remembers protecting her, remembers doing what she asked of him. Doing that now, even with her gone… it makes sense.

 

* * *

 

He wakes in medical with no memory of how he got there. She’s sat beside him, her hand in his, eyes bright and scarlet and watchful. He can’t feel his knees, so he supposes he did something to them.

“You’re here,” he says and she smiles, just one corner of her mouth tilting upwards. At her hands, even where they touch his, scarlet sparks.

“They cannot stop me,” she says. “So they don’t. I wanted to see you.”

He cannot help but smile at that, she with all her power choosing to use that to see him. He lifts a hand to stroke her cheek and smiles wider as she leans into the touch.

“I did not want you to sleep poorly,” she says and lifts her scarlet hands. He does not think before dipping his head to it, feels the scarlet ghost over his brow, into his mind.

He dreams of Wanda.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes she is there. One hand is combing through his hair, without scarlet, but her eyes still glow with it. They always glow with it.

“Did you-” he asks and she shakes her head.

“You needed to sleep,” she says, “And I would not let them take me from you while I rested, so I did not.”

He can feel his knees now, aching but strong enough for him to walk on, to run on. He swings himself out of the bed, checks his balance, reaches out his arms to scoop her up.

“Your chart,” she says as she leans into him, as he lifts her up. “They call you Silver even there.” There is something like concern in her voice as she says this, that neither of them have names any more, that even the names of their siblings remain only partial to them.

He presses a kiss to her hair as he walks to the door, as her scarlet opens it. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I don’t need a name.”

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t think she sleeps that night, curled against him as she always is. Her hands never seem to still combing through his hair, gentle as he falls asleep and gentle as he wakes. The bags beneath her eyes are deeper and darker than they’ve been in a while, and when he wakes he cups her face in his hands.

“You must sleep,” he says. “You must-”

“Be strong,” she says. “I know. For those we lost. But one night’s loss will not hurt me.”

Her eyes are full of bright scarlet, fierce and certain and her jaw is set in a way he knows. She is certain. She is strong enough. He leans forward, presses a kiss to her brow.

There is a moment before she huffs a breath, relaxes forward, rests for just a moment against him.

“Come,” she says, rising, pulling his hand gently and it is so simple to rise too, to scoop her into his arms. “Let us see what we are doing today.”

 

* * *

 

“Murdering _children,”_ she hisses to their handler, scarlet sparking around her hands. He can see the handler reaching for the taser at his waist and flickers over, flickers back, tosses the taser in his hand. If she takes issue with this mission then he stands with her. She had said, _you are the only one who is always honest._ He can’t know if the same is true for her but he can feel it. He trusts that she’s been honest to him, where they have not. He trusts that she knows what is right and what is wrong - things he thinks that his Wanda cared for - where he does not care at all. “No,” she says. “No, I refuse.”

Their handler reaches out a hand as though to cup her cheek and _oh,_ he can see why she recoiled now, when he first went to do the same. He darts forward, looms at her shoulder, fixes his gaze on their handler. The hand drops.

“You must,” their handler says. “We are working towards a _better world._ The world your brother wanted to see. The world you signed up in order to achieve.”

She bites her lip, considers, but he can see that she can no more go against this than he could go against something his sister would have wanted.

“For him,” their handler says. “You do not have to do it for us, but for _him._ Pietro.”

 _My Pietro,_ flickers into his mind in her scarlet voice. There is such sorrow and longing in the two words, so much loss that he cannot help but respond, thinking back, _My Wanda._

She reaches back to him, takes the taser he is holding, gives it back to their handler.

“For those we lost,” she says.

 

* * *

 

It is horrible. Neither of them sleep.

 

* * *

 

“We could leave,” he says one day. Not inside, not in his bed which she shares so she can sleep, not in the rooms they undoubtedly have bugged so they can watch and listen. Outside on the roof where the building wind whisks words away. She’s tucked against his chest, her face pressed to his shoulder, his lips pressed close by her ear. He can feel her lips moving against his collarbone as she speaks even through his scrubs, feel the vibrations of her words through his skin and bones. Her words, though, sound out in his mind, in her scarlet voice.

 _They would stop us,_ she says.

He cannot think of anything that could stop her. And even if they did have something, “Not both of us together,” he says.

 

* * *

 

“No,” their handler says, calm and simple and absolute. “Halt,” their handler says, and he _cannot think._ “Reset,” their handler says, and everything goes dark.

 

* * *

 

He crumples. Their handler’s mind is almost smug, and she hates it, hates it all, as their handler turns to her. “Do you remember the shell?” their handler asks, and she pulls scarlet through reality to drift off her hands like smoke. “Your brother?”

She presses the heel of one hand to her forehead where she can feel a headache starting, feel that something is _wrong._

The last two words their handler whispers. “Your vengeance?”

 

* * *

 

She… thinks she recognises him, when they are put in a room to train. There is something familiar to how he moves, his glance to the guard before sinking into blue and darting around the room.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, that will be enough.”

She sees some slender thread of recognition flicker over his mind.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songslist! Various songs that I listened to as I wrote. Enjoy!
> 
> 1\. [Ritual Spirit - Massive Attack, Azekel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhI5T_NKYxc) (this is the song that really started this AU off)  
> 2\. [From Oceans to Skies (feat. Tarby) - Aviators](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43B4FTTERUE)  
> 3\. [Headlights - Aviators](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gpj_xNgmLg)  
> 4\. [Counting Stars (Lonczinski Remix) - One Republic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNcrx25KTWE)  
> 5\. [Stay (feat. Gaby Henshaw) - Jakoban & D!avolo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlwveK7O5uA)  
> 6\. [Ultraviolence (Datsik Remix) - Lana Del Rey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYHcf8Q-vdI)  
> 7\. [Farewell To The Fairground - White Lies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlmSqyMT0FQ)  
> 8\. [Cough Cough - Everything Everything](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjKcmZGhUrQ)  
> 9\. [Our Little Horror Story - Aviators](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb3qfEeXN4) (Have you noticed I love Aviators yet?)  
> 10\. [Constellations (Rock Cover by FlyingMelodys) - Aviators](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBCH07C13sg)  
> 11\. [The Sound of War - Blue Stahli](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GI-FCApOkQ)  
> 12\. [Cyberpunk Dominion - Blue Stahli](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYAsniul62s)  
> 13\. [I Am The Beast - Blue Stahli](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5SPhETTgEc)  
> 14\. [Nemesis - Blue Stahli](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f10ecma2evA) (Ok so I also love Blue Stahli BUT NOT AS MUCH AS I LOVE AVIATORS OK)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter and will come back for more, in the meantime please leave comments!


	2. His mind hath found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have noticed the number of overall chapters has changed. Many thanks to [SecondStarOnTheLeft](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/) for their help in figuring out exactly what to do with the end of this fic. They're wonderful and also a much better writer than I could ever hope of being - give their stuff a try!

**** He hears List outside when their next checkup comes around. List’s words are clipped and hissed - he does not speak Sokovian or Russian with the same perfection he does German or English - but through his mangled tenses and terrible accent they can both hear what List is saying to their handler.

“ _ You _ were the one to break them.  _ You _ were the one who decided resetting them was the way to fix this. Now  _ I _ have to clean up your mess.”

List comes in with a frown on his face and it is a simple thing for him to let her hand slip into his. There’s something calming in it, something that feels almost familiar, and he almost wants to wonder at these constant moments of deja vu. 

“Let us see,” List says, “What can be done.”

 

* * *

 

Nothing is done, really, at least that he notices. He supposes she might notice some things. She seems far more perceptive than he, always seeming to  _ know _ what is going to happen before it does. 

But she is a witch, that is even the name they have given her, and he supposes it is nothing for her to see the future, find some prophecy. 

“It is not just that,” she says when he asks one day. “I can move things,” she says, “Amongst other things.”

“Magic,” he says.

She smiles. “Or science.” Scarlet sparks around her hand. “This all came from experiments, didn’t it?”

 

* * *

 

Did it? He can’t remember.

 

* * *

 

He wakes, one night, from a nightmare. Lights flickering over him, swinging back and forth, the feeling of being tied down, of being restrained, crushing rubble and then scarlet spiking through it all and sudden wakefulness.

“What do you remember?” she asks. She’s sat at the corner of his bed, scarlet eyes, scarlet hands, watching him. “What do you remember of before?”

He thinks. Before today? Before the nightmare? Before the castle and his powers? Before what, exactly? She always seems to know. She shrugs. 

“My sister,” he says. “She died.”

 

* * *

 

“I had a brother,” she says, several days later, sat on the roof. “He died.” She’s quiet for a moment, watching the mountains, watching the setting sun. It looks like her eyes are a part of the sunset, so filled with scarlet they are. “His name was Pietro,” she says, and he  _ knows, _ knows he has heard this before. She looks to him, sunset-scarlet eyes calm and fierce and certain all at once. “Your sister’s name was Wanda.”

Deja vu. They have done this all before.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments!


	3. Against thy strength

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that last chapter was so short. To make up for it this one is a decent length!

So, he thinks, we have done this before, lived this before, known this before. He sees her before their handler, being told what mission they are to be sent on, sees her refuse. He looms at her shoulder, their handler’s taser in his hand.

She stills, even before their handler says something.

 _So,_ he thinks, _this has happened before, too._ He does not glance to her before handing the taser back. He feels her hand at his wrist, holding so tightly he can feel the bones almost grinding together. He doesn’t care. The pain doesn’t matter.

They’ve done this before. They don’t _remember_ doing this before.

 

* * *

 

 _We could ask List,_ she sends as they run. Her words are quieter in his mind than usual - balking at what they must do or balking at the possibility that they have been lied to more than they know he doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that something is wrong.

 

* * *

 

They have been sent to kill people (and _children)._ Get information, kill them, leave. Simple. He sets her down outside the house - bright, shiny, plenty of devices designed to protect against normal human threats.

They aren’t normal any more. Sometimes he wonders if they’re even human.

“You don’t have to do this,” he tells her. “You do not want to.”

“It’s _wrong,”_ she whispers.

Maybe, he thinks. But wrong doesn’t matter, now. Survival does. _Remembering_ does.

He reaches out, cups her cheek gently. She leans into the touch, her eyelids close.

The scarlet shines even behind the thin skin of her lids.

“I will do this,” he tells her, “so you do not have to.”

 

* * *

 

It’s horrible. When they get back he cannot sleep, even as she offers to use her scarlet on him, help him in some way.

“I can find memories,” she says, “Of your sister.”

He looks at her where she’s curled beside him on his bed. Her eyes are still bright with scarlet, the bags beneath them huge and dark and he reaches out again to cup her cheek.

“You should rest,” he says. “I will not leave you.”

 

* * *

 

He thinks, for a moment, there is something pitying in her eyes, or maybe sad, or maybe _grieving_ before she closes them. Her head rests in his lap, her hair - long and loose still, he doesn’t know why they don’t make her cut it - spills across his thighs.

For the first time he’s seen, she sleeps.

 

* * *

 

He hears whispers sometimes. From guards, from doctors. He doesn’t listen for them, but they’re there. _Unnatural. Freakish._

_Wrong._

He thinks: maybe it is because we have powers. He knows it is not that, though. He has seen their glowing smiles when they use their powers to pull off an impossible trick. It is not their powers.

He does not know what it could be.

 

* * *

 

He curls with her to sleep most nights. They lie beside each other, or one will let the other place their head in the other’s lap, and they rest. Sometimes she doesn’t sleep, but lets him dream of his sister, dredges up memories that must be of his Wanda even if he cannot make out the face.

He doesn’t think it’s odd that he can’t make out her face, but sometimes he thinks his Wanda looks like her.

“Could you do it for you?” he asks her when he wakes from such dreams. “Make yourself dream of your memories of your brother?”

She shakes her head. “I can’t,” she says, and he has never seen her look so simply sad. “My powers don’t work on me.”

 

* * *

 

He is sure that isn’t right. He’s seen her use her scarlet to lift herself just as often as he’s seen her pull scarlet through herself. Her scarlet is _hers_ , surely her powers can work on her if she wants them to?

 

* * *

 

“You can’t use your powers on you?” he asks one day. They’re out in the woods outside the castle, using his speed and her scarlet to take down mock-armaments as practice for an actual assault.

She looks at him, wild dark hair, wild scarlet eyes, and nods.

“But when you leap-” he starts.

“It is different,” she says. “I cannot touch my own mind. They told me that it is why I lost so much of my memory.”

 

* * *

 

… Something, something does not fit together right.

 

* * *

 

“How did you lose your memories?” she asks one day. They’re sat on the roof again, and she’s tucked against him. There’s something familiar about this too, like they’ve done this before, but there’s something familiar about so many things and he can’t believe he’d forget so much. Maybe, he thinks, it is simply _right_ for them to be close like this. Maybe this is some kind of fate.

“The experiments,” he says. “I think.” Her head lifts, scarlet eyes bright and watching him over the curve of her arm. “I woke up,” he says. “I could run. They told me that my sister had died, and I found myself unable to remember anything more than her name. Her name and-”

“How it felt to lose her,” she says. He can only nod. “That is how they told me my Pietro died. I could remember his name, and how it felt-”

“Like everything is wrong.”

She nods. “But I can’t do nothing.”

He thinks: I’ve heard that before too.

 

* * *

 

She asks List about the comments people make. She does not say he heard them, she says, _I can see it in  their minds._

He wonders if that shows their hand too much, but it doesn’t matter.

He asks List about the deja vu, about the constant recurrence.

List tells her that he will talk to the doctors and the guards, change them if necessary. List tells him to wait so they can do further checks.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up in medical. She’s at his side, the other one to survive the experiments. Her eyes are scarlet bright with it and yet almost flat due to how bright they are, how strong the colour is.

She looks sad at something though, when he looks at her.

Her hand strokes through his hair, and there’s nothing there. He thinks there should be something there, scarlet like her eyes.

After a moment there is.

It feels like the hands of a ghost.

“What,” she says, “Is the last thing you remember?”

 

* * *

 

_List’s office. The cot. His hand resting on a warm spot, someone has just left, the door clicked shut. List taking his glasses off, rubbing his brow, pinching his nose._

_“No,” List says. He doesn’t know what List means. “Halt,” List says, and he_ cannot think. _“Reset,” List says, and everything goes dark._

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments!


	4. In some close corner of my brain

He’s seizing, she thinks, eyes flickering under his lids, his mind darting a million ways all at once. She pushes scarlet in, tries to still it all, takes his hand in hers and keeps his nails from digging into his palms hard enough to draw blood.

His nails draw blood from her hands instead, but she can handle that. He hands ache after a day of calling her scarlet already, four pinpricks more will not affect much.

Something is wrong. Something has  _ been wrong _ from the start.

But she doesn’t know what it could be.

 

* * *

 

She sets his mind to rest, she can do that much at least. She finds the memories that were almost lost, the ones that will allow him to recognise her, and puts them back where they are meant to be. 

She wishes someone could do that for her mind, see if this has been done to her, but it isn’t possible. Her powers don’t work on her. Her powers will only hurt her if she tries.

That was the second thing they’d told her after she’d woken. “Your brother died,” the doctor had said. “You hurt yourself trying to make sure you did not forget him.”

_ Oh, _ she had thought.  _ So that is why I remember nothing at all. _

 

* * *

 

She remembers his name though. Pi-et-ro. For now, that will have to be enough.

 

* * *

 

She keeps him sleeping, because that is simplest. Because if he wakes and they realise what she’s done they will both go through that again, and neither of them will remember and both will have deja vu and it will become an endless cycle. 

So she says nothing. She keeps him sleeping so he says nothing.

They are lucky, she supposes, that they only thought to try to wipe him, and not her.

They are lucky, she supposes, that he’d been careful to say that only he’d been feeling the deja vu.

 

* * *

 

“We need you to do a job,” Strucker tells her. She looks at him, tilts her head to consider. She can see the shape of it in his mind, yet another assassination. No children, this time, just an old man with a penchant for fraud. 

“What about him?” she asks, her hand still in his, blood encrusted where his nails had broken the skin. 

“We will watch him,” Strucker says. “We will tell you as soon as he wakes.”

_ Lie _ sings out of his mind, followed by _ but we will let her know. _ There’s some test in that, she thinks, but she will deal with that when it comes.  _ If _ it comes. She can see Strucker’s mind, see List’s mind, see the mind of their handler standing outside and the guards in the hall.

She can see his mind, in the bed, and she leans to press a kiss to his brow. 

She lets the lightest touch of scarlet flick from her little finger into his hair.  _ Do not wake, _ she asks of him,  _ until I return. I can protect you then. _

 

* * *

 

It’s a risk to protect him, she thinks as they fly her towards the mission. It’s slower than his blue speed, even if it is somewhat warmer. It feels less safe, though, not just because they are in the air, not just because she is surrounded by people she cannot trust.

Simply because he isn’t there.

There is something trustworthy in him, something reliable, something honest. There is safety in that.

It’s unwise to trust, she knows. They have each lost enough already, trust and reliance means yet another thing to lose. 

But she does trust him. She does rely on him. She has chosen to protect him, just as he chose to protect her, and kill children so she did not have their blood on her hands.

 

* * *

 

She wonders if he remembers that, now.

 

* * *

 

“You must not be seen,” their handler says. “I know that will be harder without Silver, Witch, but-”

She smiles. It is a smile of teeth, not the gentle smile she offers him when he smiles. As scarlet dances through from whatever other reality it comes from, heeding her call, their handler falls silent.

She does not like their names for them, but she supposes there is a kind of accuracy to them. 

She may be some kind of witch.

 

* * *

 

She is not seen. She turns away cameras, turns away people, touches minds and makes them unaware that she is even there.

It is easy to do that, to make them see her as insignificant. 

There are some days that she feels like she is already. 

The old man is sleeping. She’d almost hoped he would be awake, hoped there could be some confrontation, hoped that she could find some way to reinforce once more that she does this, kills people, for her brother. Because people like this man are the reason she and her Pietro made the choice to be experimented on. Made the choice that let him die.

But the man is sleeping, is fast asleep beside his wife.

It is no matter to send her scarlet, to snap the man’s neck, to touch the woman’s mind and make sure she does not notice.

No one will notice until she is far away, safe at his beside where she can protect him from whatever Strucker and List might plan to do.

 

* * *

 


	5. For hearts of truest mettle

He is confused as she wakes. She can see that, feel that. His mind is a riot of colour, blue underlying everything of course, but pulses of red, almost like her scarlet, pulses of orange and green and grey and silver. She touches his mind gently, not to affect but just to listen. 

_ Wanda, _ his mind is screaming, beneath the surface of confusion.  _ Wanda! _

“She is gone,” she whispers, stroking his hair back from his face. “Just as my Pietro is.” She combs his hair back again, lets her hand cup his cheek gently. “But we can still fight for them. Change the world for them.”

“For those we lost,” he whispers.

* * *

 

“What do you remember?” she asks him. “Of before?” They are sat on the roof now. She’s leaning against a part of it, picking at the loose thread on the knees of her scrubs. Sometimes the wind blows her hair into her face but she doesn’t mind. Its her hair after all.

He’s lying down on the roof tiles, his feet pressing against the wall of a chimney so he doesn’t slip down. He’s mulling over the question, wondering how far before she’s asking about. He can’t see her, right now though, not from his angle, so there’s no point to shrugging.

His answer is the same as before, though.

“My sister,” he says. “She died.”

“It’s why they like us,” she say. She can see the sun setting behind the mountains, all of the myriad rich colours - red and orange and magenta against the darkening blue. The thread on her knee is stubborn though, and she can’t seem to get it loose. “HYDRA. We have lost things, had things taken from us.” He’s looking up at her now, head tilted against the tiles to watch her, his mind pulsing blue-purple-red with the sense that something about this is familiar. “Things we want but can never have back.”

“I know you,” he says, “But I don’t know how.”

She sighs at that. “And I know you,” she says. “Something is wrong. Something has been done to us.”

* * *

 

_ What _ has been done to them, though, that is the question. Neither of them knows. She can see the ghost of a thought echoing through his mind - _ but she always knows _ \- but she doesn’t. She just knows what other people do.

_ For their siblings, _ they think,  _ that is how we control them. _

So, she thinks, that is what that is, when they say those words. Manipulation. Is it really what their siblings would have wanted? His Wanda, her Pietro?

She cannot remember her brother, but she can remember the shape of him. Remember fighting alongside him, protesting, screaming until her throat was hoarse. Remembers fighting because something was wrong, and it was the only way they could make it right.

But was what they wanted the same  _ right? _ Was it working against the same  _ wrong? _

She can’t say anything, can’t do anything, can’t  _ probe. _ If she starts poking in people’s minds scarlet spreads. People see the scarlet, notice their thoughts going awry. He doesn’t seem to, the few times she has touched his mind, but he has responded to her thoughts before, reacted as if she had spoken.

They trust each other, she remembers, even as there’s a risk in that.

So she has to wait and hope and listen.

Or-

But no. She will not risk making herself mad all over again. Someone must remember for the both of them, until they have learned what it is has been done. She can hoard his memories, give them back to him after each time, build up a palimpsest of memory. He can’t do that for her. 

One of them has to remain untouched by it. 

* * *

 

He thinks  _ I must keep her safe. _ She could ask him why, probe his mind to make him explain but there isn’t a need. His mind does that already.  _ Save memories, always knows, more powerful, _ she expects but then--

_ Dear, important, precious, care, love. _

She does not expect that. Does not know what to  _ do _ with that.

She did not think they had the space and safety here, for that kind of simple, gentle, all-encompassing affection.

* * *

 

That night they curl together. They could speak, but they know others must listen now. Something echoes in her mind, her voice saying  _ they are always watching _ \- and they know it is absolutely and horribly true. So they find other ways.

_ You have killed for me, _ she says to his mind. Scarlet words from scarlet fingers. Scarlet eyes watch him nod.  _ You would do so again. _ It’s not a question. He still nods.  **_Why?_ ** she asks.

His hands cup her face and were he anyone else she would flinch away. But it’s him, so she doesn’t, just leans into the touch, the small instance of gentleness they each have found.

“I love you,” he whispers. “You are the only good thing in all of this.”

She watches him, and he doesn’t look away.

She says, “You are the only one who is always honest.”

* * *

 

She takes to leaving the least scarlet touch in his mind. It is as much to warn him, to help him, as it is because it means she can feel the constant gentle affection he feels for her, that soft gentle reassurance that makes her feel as safe as when he is carrying her to or from a mission. Sometimes she catches the tail-ends of thought flickers, memories and ideas and considerations, his thoughts going so fast she can’t always catch them at all. 

She doesn’t mind. She doesn’t need to watch his mind as she does everyone else’s. He’s safe. It’s that simple.

* * *

 

She’s in his mind when they’re in the middle of a firefight, a mission gone awry. Some other group came bowling in and the only reason they got to cover in time is because she saw their minds coming.

They can’t escape the teargas though, not easily, even as he runs through it he ends up getting a lungful and he stumbles to a halt beside her his mind full of  _ pain _ and  _ eyes _ and  _ riot. _

The last is followed by a memory, cyrillic signs and words shouted in Sokovian and the distinct and certain knowledge that his Wanda was there with him.

She creates a scarlet shield, keeps the smoke away, gently strokes his face until his powers have healed him enough for him to open his eyes, look at her.

“I didn’t remember that,” he says, memory still running through his mind on a constant repeat, “I’d forgotten that until now.”

“Later,” she says, eyes darting, watching every mind she can see, “Later we will find other memories for you. Other ones hidden.”

* * *

 

Strucker is furious when they return - not at them, thankfully, though his fury remains palpable to her, bubbling slowly and dangerously like molten metal and rock. Strucker is angry at the techs and intelligence agents who missed it, but they managed their mission well enough and came back without a scratch. 

There’s nothing for Strucker to reprimand them on.

“You did well,” Strucker even says, grudgingly. “Your siblings would be proud of you.”

_ My Pietro, _ she thinks, loud enough that beside her he can hear. His hand squeezes hers as his mind responds.  _ My Wanda. _

She can see Strucker’s mind, though. It is honest and dishonest and uncertain all at once.

All these false certainties of his, all these ideas of what people are.

_ Tools, _ Strucker thinks.

_ No, _ she thinks in reply.

 

* * *

If she asks their handler she will be told,  _ you lived  _ here, _ you went to school  _ here, _ you worked  _ here. If she asks their handler she will be told,  _ your brother liked caramel sweets, he never left your side, he worked odd jobs. _

She thinks: not all of this is true.

She asks him if he’s ever asked their handler for memories and he shakes his head. “I remember what I remember,” he says. “I remember my Wanda as much as I will. Is there a point to asking more?”

The scarlet dances around her hand as she twists it, she knows her eyes are scarlet because they are always scarlet now. “But you will do this?” she asks. 

He shrugs. “They will be my memories,” he says. “And I trust you.”

His mind sings,  _ Dear, important, precious, care, love. _

* * *

 

The memories pass through his mind too fast for her to see. This is not like the moment in the fight, the memory stuttering its way through, all shock and surprise and an unexpected response. He has chosen this, is aware of this, and all his speed is focussed on processing as much of this as possible, on learning and remembering everything he can.

It is over too quickly. She cannot find more, dredge up more to the surface of his mind and his eyes are wide and bright and blue, staring at the ceiling with such intense focus she does not know what to do.

“Wanda,” he whispers.

Her hand cups his cheek, gentle as ever and his eyes flicker to her. 

“Wanda,” he says, and it’s a whimper. His eyes are filled with sorrow and almost-recognition and confusion. 

He looks so very lost.

“She’s gone,” she whispers to him. “Your Wanda, my Pietro. We have lost them.”

He sits up in a blur of blue, wraps her in his arms, crushes her to his chest. “ _ Wanda,” _ he says and there is some certainty here, memories flickering through his mind over and over and over, memories of his sister, small, with thin bony wrists and long dark hair and they are going too fast and she cannot see and he is whispering into her hair, over and over, “ _ what have they done to you, sister.” _

The guards come.

* * *

 

“It was a nightmare,” she tells List. “I was trying to keep him from them.”

“You should not experiment in minds without telling us,” List says.

“He agreed,” she said. “And I have kept him from nightmares before.”

List is quiet where he stands, leaning against his desk, fingers tapping against the wood.

“Whatever you did this time,” List says, “It has confused him, made him deranged. He is not thinking straight.” List turns, shuffles some papers at his desk. “Thankfully,” List says, “We can fix him. But we may well not let you two work together again. We cannot afford to keep having you each damaged like this.” List looks at her, a small odd smile on his face. “There is no way you can each get your vengeance for your siblings if you aren’t at your best, now is there?”

* * *

 

This is true.

But she does not have to like it.

 

* * *

 

She isn’t allowed to work with him but she is allowed to watch him. She watches him for days before letting it peter out. There’s no need to watch constantly when he doesn’t even seem to be aware she exist so she stops. Lets the guards notice her apparent ambivalence, lets it filter back to Strucker and to List.

She knows how their minds work now. She knows how infallible they think themselves, knows how long she will have to wait.

 

* * *

 

They call her a witch and forget that witches have the patience to wait out centuries to see their curses done.

 

* * *

 

They stop watching her. She has obeyed and listened, worked as told, trained as instructed. She does not need to lay eyes on him to watch him, not with her scarlet still in his scoured-clean mind.

She needs to lay eyes on him to scrape off the whitewash of amnesia.

 

* * *

 

“Your brother died,” that’s what they’d told her. “Your brother died.”

Not how, nor why, nor when. “Your brother died.”

She wonders if he was told something similar.

 

* * *

 

“Hello,” she whispers when he wakes. She’s stood at the end of his bed, eyes and hands afire with scarlet. She reaches forward gently, slowly, and…

* * *

 


	6. Do what thou canst for alteration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for that horrible, horrible gap between updates. I've almost got the whole fic done now, though, so - in theory - updates should be more regular now. 
> 
> Also, yes there are references to _[No. Halt. Reset.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7223491)_ in this.
> 
>  _Also,_ also yes, my chapter estimate has increased. Oops?

It’s _her._

He’s not sure who she is, just that she is as common in his dreams as his sister - sometimes he thinks they might be one and the same, but if she was his sister, somehow brought back from the dead, surely she would answer to her own name and know what his was, before he had lost his? He is not sure. She stands there, though, watching him, patient and quiet, observant in a way that reminds him of his sister, but that is different all the same. Silent, still.

So she is not his sister, back from the dead. But he _does_ know her.

In her eyes, scarlet as embers, recognition is bright.

 

* * *

 

“You know me,” she says, and the scarlet around her hands dims. “I thought you had forgot.”

“I don’t remember,” he says. “But I do.”

There is a smile on her face, as though this half-remembrance is perfectly ordinary.

 

* * *

 

Her scarlet feels like the hands of ghosts against his skin, and she leans slightly against his shoulder where she’s sat beside him on the cot. “Do you trust me?” she asks, and it is a simple thing to nod. “Would you like to remember?” she asks and it is even simpler.

“Stay calm,” she says, and the fingers of ghosts reach into his mind.

 

* * *

 

“You had a brother,” he says when the scarlet has done its work. “His name was Pietro. He died.”

“You had a sister,” she says, eyes afire with scarlet as she watches him. “Her name was Wanda. She died.”

He can feel her hands, gentle in his hair, as he whispers, “What have they done to us?”

 

* * *

 

They have done something, he knows this, they must have. Remembering and not remembering, half knowing and echoes of memory, this eerie familiarity he feels with someone he doesn’t know.

“You do know me,” she whispers. “Shall I show you more?”

He nods, and a new layer of memories peels free.

 

* * *

 

 _No. Stop. Reset._ rattles through his brain one way, then echoes back in reverse. Scarlet fingers pry up blank space and more memories of the castle fill his mind, and more and more, _No. Halt. Reset._ echoing back and forth and back and forth as memories make themselves known.

Memories after memories shake themselves free, forcing choking plaster off them as they erupt from the background of his mind like trees.

And suddenly the blank slate of his mind is a forest.

 

* * *

 

“We have to leave,” he says in a single breath.

Her eyes are piercingly red, her words flit into his mind as bright and bold as blood. _Then we must leave_ **_now,_ ** she says.  _No hesitation, no plan._

She leans to him, he reaches for her and in moments she is in his arms, scarlet in her hands opening the door again. He sprints down corridors, barely pausing to let her know when there is another door she must open and suddenly they are outside, air cold against their skin and though the thin cloth of their scrubs.

 _Hurry,_ she sends, as though he would do anything less. There are no guards here that he can see, except one on the battlements and he bolts through the courtyard, through the gate, to the woods. He is almost about to slow, slow to something not quite as hurtling but--

 _Hurry,_ she says again, scarlet like blood in his mind. _Get us to the city._

He shifts his grip, holds her more stably, and runs on.

 

* * *

 

 _Here,_ she says, after he has been running through the empty streets blindly. _Stop here._ He blurs to a halt at the edge of an alley, sets her down on bare feet. Neither of them had had the time to get shoes, let alone their tactical gear, before going and the cold is biting at their skin, the hard ground, cutting into his feet.

Down the alley there’s someone in scrubs smoking by an emergency exit.

“A clinic?” he hisses.

He hand is gentle on his wrist, words red in his mind. _Trackers,_ she sends. _And we can steal clothes here._

They are past the smoking nurse in a moment, her scarlet ensuring they are ignored even as it steals the information they need. Her hand does not leave his wrist.

 

* * *

 

She hops up onto a counter in the supply room, finds a scalpel with deft fingers and pulls at her scrubs to find a spot just above her hip.

“It’s here,” she says. Her voice is soft as she holds the blade to her skin. “Yours is on the other side. But we both have them.”

The room is dim and dark, her eyes glowing like embers as they watch him. He knows she is not lying, that she would not lie about this, that somehow she has not just found his lost memories but found memories in other’s minds. She offers him the scalpel.

“I will pull it out,” she says, “if you cut.”

 

* * *

 

The metal of the scalpel is cold in his hands, and he can see the goosebumps of her skin where the blade presses to her skin. He can feel her gaze on him, feel her touch in his mind, the lightest loop of scarlet around the trees of memories, feel her absolute certainty. He can see the blade pressed against her skin and thinks, _this is trust._

After all they have been through, after their memories have been taken from them, having the memory of these trackers being implanted… and she trusts him to cut her open to take them out.

He presses the blade into her skin.

 

* * *

 

They leave the hospital half an hour later, trackers crushed beneath the heels of new (stolen) shoes, wrapped in new (stolen) clothes, the cuts on their hips stitched up by her careful fingers, both floating on one each of the painkillers he had found. He is healing already, he knows, knows he will have to pull the stitches out in the morning, but she will take longer to heal.

They look at the city they think that they should almost know, and they wander.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this enough to leave comments! Feedback is precious.


	7. My senses want their outward motion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the two begin to relearn their past and the lies hidden within it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Andrej/Snowsmoke is indeed a reference to [The Dead Do Not Bury Themselves](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4494030). People liked him there so I thought I would bring him back in a similar sort of role for those of you who've stuck with me from the start of my delving into the twins.

They’ve had no sleep, but they need no sleep. They’ve gone days without it before, that he now remembers, and he thinks she might have gone weeks. They can last without sleep for one night more. 

The streets are… he recognises them, sometimes, and sometimes he even knows why, the memory of running down these streets with her in his arms for one mission or another. 

But other times there is a familiarity there and he doesn’t know why.

 

* * *

 

“Witch,” says a child’s voice from an alleyway. “It's  _ you.” _   There is no mistaking the boy’s surprise. He is at the boy's throat in a moment though, pinning him against the wall, over-large booted feet dangling. “And your shadow,” the boy manages to get out. “Hello again.”

_ How- _  He is about to snarl at the boy, demand an answer for how the boy knows her designation before her hand is on his arm.

“Wait,” she says. “You knew us,” she says to the boy. “Before. Tell us.”

Slowly the boy is set down, feet scuffing over the dirt of the alley as he fishes a cigarette and lighter from a deep pocket. “You’re the street witch,” the boy says to her, lighting the cigarette. “You used to call me Snowsmoke. Don’t you remember?”

 

* * *

 

The boy is small and pale, hair as pale a gold as thistledown, as snow, almost silvery and dangling in grimy strands from his scalp. His skin is almost as pale, eyes a blue-grey as light as a winter sky. He exhales smoke with each breath as he tells them what he remembers and she can see why she might have once called this child Snowsmoke.

“You don’t remember this?” the boy - Andrej, Snowsmoke - says when he’s finished. “Giving me cigarettes for information, the foster homes, everyone calling us street witches because we always  _ knew? _ You don’t remember any of it?”

“I remember my brother,” she says, fingers gently massaging her forehead. “He died.”

His hand is gentle on her shoulder as she says this, squeezes slightly before he adds, “I had a sister. She died. We don’t remember more.”

“Oh,” Andrej says, and stubs out his cigarette. “Well. You can’t stay  _ here.” _

 

* * *

 

“You stayed here, once,” the boy says, leading them to the old church in the middle of the old town. “No one’s claimed it since.”

He glances around, glances to her, her eyes still glowing red as embers. 

“Is it safe?” she asks Andrej, and the boy shrugs.

“Safe enough,” he says. “It always scared everyone else away.”

 

* * *

 

They fall asleep leaning against the wall. Well. He does. He’s half sat upright, one arm resting gently around her shoulders as she curls against him, but she cannot sleep. It is too bright outside, bright with streetlights and fires and minds, and even with the peacefulness of his thoughts she cannot find rest.

Instead, she paces through the forest of his mind, amongst the trees of his memories, running the fingers of her thoughtform over their ephemeral bark, listening to the whispering wind of his thoughts. 

The church is large and dark around them, and from where they are huddled in one corner the chair on the dais hulks like some vast predator. She doesn’t mind it though - there is little that can threaten them now and Andrej’s mind had been honest as he had told them  _ safe enough. _

Around them the minds are bright and fierce and blazing, but beside her his mind is soft and quiet, sleeping peacefully. Even waking his mind has a kind of peace to it, an absolute purpose, a certain honestly.

She thinks: this is why he can be trusted.

 

* * *

 

He slips out in the morning, and she feigns sleep as soon as she feels him stir so he will not worry. He is back in a blur of blue. A bag of bread rolls and fruit and chocolate is deposited before her, two toothbrushes, toothpaste, bottles of water.

“I got what I thought we would need,” he says when she looks up at him and his mind is clear and truthful.

She riffles through the bag. “Deodorant?”

She’s smiling as he sprints off and… there is something free, now, about everything. Things seem brighter now, in the light of day, the light of the city and not the castle. She presses her fingers to the healing cut on her hip, and picks up an apple.

 

* * *

 

He finds them food, most of the time. Food and new clothes and just about everything else they need. When he comes back from a run to find her drawing patterns in the dust and writing some script that goes right to left instead of left to right he leaves and comes back with two notebooks, three pens and a single book written in the same script.

“It was all I could find,” he says. “But maybe it will help?”

 

* * *

 

The book does help - she learns a lot from the little volume, about the language (Hebrew), about Judaism, about the folklore. 

He brings her other books as the days pass - in Hebrew, Sokovian, German, English. She finds she can read most of them, with a little effort. 

“Can you?” she asks him, holding the books out to him. He peers at the words and shrugs.

“Some of it. Doesn’t matter enough to bother.”

He heads out still, most days. Learns the city, fetches food. She thinks, sometimes, that he spends time with Andrej, tries to relearn those bits of their history that have been taken from them but she knows it cannot be often or much. The boy barely crops up in his thoughts and she remembers his words -  _ They will be my memories -  _ and she knows how much it means to him that he relearns things from himself.

 

* * *

 

She likes to go a-learning and a re-learning on her own as well sometimes. Not often - she knows he would worry if she was gone when he returned, so her trips are invariably short - but often enough. She walks and sees if there are things which remind her of anything, if she can find the streets the handler had mentioned.

She sees a cafe owner who seems to recognise her, sees faces that she remembers seeing in his memories when they had flickered through his mind after the teargas. She sees a riot and something in her recalls the hoarse feeling of her throat after spending a day chanting at a protest that turned into a riot as the police came.

Always, though, she is back at the church when he returns, waiting for him. She tells him of what she did, of what she saw and remembered, and he does the same.

They rest, curled against each other in their corner, and sleep.

 

* * *

 

Not every night, of course. She still can’t sleep easily with the whole city bright and alive around them and more often than not she is curled against him, watching the doors to the church with scarlet eyes. Since they have come here she sometimes sees children, children who seem to remember her, and some evening she spies them at the door to the church, looking in.

In their minds the image rises up, two silhouettes curled against each other as they always have, and then one, turning to look at them with bright red eyes.

_ Demon, _ thinks one mind.  _ Monster _ , thinks another. There is even one mind which thinks  _ Estrie _ and she remembers what she read in Hebrew in that little book he had found.

_ Perhaps, _ she thinks, and keeps on watching.

 

* * *

 

One day she decides: she should go a-searching. Their handler had told them where once she had lived and she thinks, perhaps, that if anything might let her retrieve memories lost it would be a place she would know as utterly as her own home.

He leaves in the morning, as he always does, a rush of blue returning in just a moment with food. While they eat breakfast Andrej lopes by and is thrown a packet of cigarettes - while neither of them approve of the boy’s habit, they both know that he will tell them a great deal for his particular vice. This morning, as well, they give the boy food - a piece of bread slathered in honey, a small square of chocolate. While they eat children come.

Some of them she recognises, from the shapes of their minds.  _ There _ is the one who thought her a monster,  _ there  _ the one who called her demon,  _ there _ the one who named her Estrie. Advice is asked, and advice is given. At first Andrej led this, telling the other children where to go to stay safe, what to do to protect themselves, but before long they had joined in.

Something about it was familiar, after all.

Once they have eaten and the children has left, Andrej follows. After a moment more, in a blur of blue, he leaves with empty bottles, returns with ones full of water. Then he leaves again, off to do whatever he has chosen to do today.

She doesn’t know how long this will take. It didn’t take him long to find and process new memories but then, she thinks, his mind is not hers. She cannot use her powers on her mind, not without risking madness, and she will not do that, cannot. He can use his speed, process things a hundred, a thousand, a million times faster than she, and even then he almost lost all his memories together, had regained some certainty but mixed in with uncertainty, too many memories confusing everything.

She wishes to be certain.

(She knows, too, that he relies on her to be certain.)

 

* * *

 

It is not a long walk, in the end. She is thankful for that. Down one street and another, cutting through one alley, scaring some older boys away from one curling child and directing them to Andrej, and then continuing on, past one market square, down too more streets and she is there.

The street their handler had said she had lived.

 

* * *

 

She stands there in the street.

She stands there and she feels nothing.

There is not even the least sense of deja vu, not the least familiarity.  _ Maybe _ she thinks.  _ Maybe it is so familiar it is not familiar as everything else is _ but no, it cannot be that. Andrej had said she had always seen he and her together and they both had feelings of deja vu over and over on that, some knowledge that they must have known each other to trust so easily after all they each had lost (their siblings and  _ their memories _ of their siblings, price taken twice over, grieving what they do not remember even as they know the ache).

She stands in the street and she feels nothing.

There is nothing familiar, no memories rising. There is no sense that she knows the cobbles here, knows which door was hers. In the minds around her she senses no familiarity, no minds she knows, no minds which know her.

There is nothing. Nothing, a depression in smooth soil, a pothole in the road, a hole in the warp and weft of the fabric of the city.

There is no familiarity here.

She turns, looks back the way she came but there is no familiarity there either. There is nothing.

_ Nothing. _

A lie then. But in that case, what is true? Why did their handler seem so certain of what he had said? Were there more memories taken, of a time here in this part of the city? But no, because they always  _ knew _ something was off when they went where they had been before. Had their handler been lied too? Possible. Did the documents lie? Almost certain - their names were not Witch and Silver, no matter how many might know them by those monikers.

A lie, then.

How much else had been lies? Had her brother really loved caramel sweets? Had he really worked odd jobs? Had she really had a brother? Had they said that so she would bond with him more easily, told him he had once had a sister so he would bond with her? Had they had other siblings, or none at all, lovers or other family, or even just a pet, something to claim that place so they would feel the loss and grieve and bond?

How much had been a lie?

She can feel tears trickling down her face.

Lies and lies and lies upon lies. She knows Strucker had lied, and List. She had sensed each one and told him of each she could. She had sensed uncertainty, known when they said one thing and though another but some of this…

Lies and truth.

They had been certain when they had told her she had lost her memories due to trying to use it to remember. Been honest, she thinks. But how honest? Honest in what way? Had she really lost them because she fought to remember? Or had she lost them because her powers would have risked destroying everything they worked towards, had unearthed his memories, could have unearthed her own if they did not warn her off it?

She could…

She won’t. She cannot risk being mad. Even if they were lying she can fix his mind. They do not know if she can fix her own, and knows that he cannot. 

Lies and lies and lies.

Where is certainty now? Almost everything she knows she had gleaned from their minds, had learned from what they had said, in some way could trace back to them, those she knew now had lied.

She cannot be certain of anything.

She can feel tears dropping from her chin. Feels the cold path as the wind blows, and the cold when the droplet falls. People might be staring now, but she doesn’t care. Everything she thought she knew has been uprooted, as completely, as absolutely as his mind as she had scraped away the whitewashing of lost memories and revealed the truth, but here, now, there are no memories to fill the void.

There is nothing.

 

* * *

 

Arms wrap around her, firm and certain, and she is pulled against a warm chest.

“I have you,” his voice whispers into her ears, and she can see minds watching if she stretches out but it is  _ effort _ to make them look away. “It’s all right,” he whispers, pulling her into his arms, cradling her as he does when he is about to run. “You are going to be all right.”

_ Oh, _ she thinks.  _ I may have one certainty. _

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to come and yell at me on my [tumblr](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/), and please do leave comments and crit!


	8. ABSENCE, hear thou my protestation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which canon events occur.

There’s a pattern to everything now, he thinks. Each HYDRA base they find there’s a pattern to how they handle it. Tony looks at the tech, figures out how they handle that. Thor tries his best to search for the Sceptre, Natasha, Maria and Clint look for ways in. He looks, desperately, for some sign that this one will be the last one, that HYDRA will be gone forever with this next base.

Bruce darts between them, helping how he can, his algorithms to help Thor, his sense to Tony’s lack, his good nature to help ease Clint, Maria and Natasha’s seriousness. 

Sometimes Sam and Rhodey drop by and offer whatever help they can. Sometimes Sam drops by to give him and Nat information -  _ found a bank, in the vault, Steve, you won’t believe it _ or  _ there’s a report, just out of Austria _ or  _ man with a metal arm spotted, want me to check it out? _

It never turns out to be anything. 

_ (once it did, a vault, a chair, a frozen coffin) _

There’s a pattern now, to how they prepare, to how they attack. It worries him, slightly, how it’s all become almost routine.

 

* * *

 

“Sir,” JARVIS says, voice clear and prim and everything it was programmed to be coming out of the speakers of his suit. “Debris is hitting the city, there is a risk-”

He sighs, sends off for the Iron Legion, always waiting in the wings, and heads in for the castle. They need to figure out how to get past these damn shields.

 

* * *

 

The Sceptre is here - must be here - he can almost  _ smell _ it. The others would not believe him if he said that, but the Captain at least believes him when he says it must be here -  _ Strucker couldn’t launch this defence without it _ \- but it isn’t the same as the surety Sif and the Warriors Three would have.

“I can smell it,” he would say, and Sif would laugh and go, “Smell the victory feast, maybe,” while Fandral and Volstagg and Hogun would trust their own senses to check his words.

But they would all  _ know _ , and fight all the fiercer for it.

Eventually, he thinks, he is going to have to introduce them all.

 

* * *

 

“Sir,” JARVIS says. He sounds politely puzzled - not that he ever  _ doesn’t _ sound polite. “Sir, there appears to be… there may be…  _ enhanced _ in the town.”

“What.”

“The Legion are managing the debris but periodically there seems like there might be… others, filling in the gaps where we cannot protect the citizens.”

“Got any footage for me?”

Jarvis is quiet for a moment. “No,” he says. “There doesn’t appear to be sufficient sustained signal for people to upload to servers and some of these phones are too old for me to easily access, or to have clear footage. But there are reports-”

“Make a note, J,” he says. “We can chase it up later. For now, no harm, no foul, buddy, because we need to take down these shields.”

 

* * *

 

Tony brings down the defences and in that moment Strucker and his men have lost. Their tanks and embedded armaments are nothing against Hulk, and ordinary, human soldiers are no match for all of their various skills and enhancements. Even in their numbers.

Strucker… his attempt to surrender reminds Steve of some of the men from the war, grovelling scientists and fearful HYDRA lackeys, vowing that they did not mean to be loyal, did not know what they did, anything for the hope of mercy.

And he has to be better than them all, and give it. 

Since Bucky, since the bridge, since the Battle over the Potomac… he doesn’t really want to.

But he must, and he does.

“Cap,” comes crackling over comms. “Cap, you should see this.”

 

* * *

 

There’s a room. It’s lined in tiles - easy to wash clean, he knows - with a drain in the corner. He hears, distantly, that Thor has the sceptre, is taking it back to the Quinjet while Clint fires it up, and Natasha gets Bruce back from Hulk. 

But that’s nothing compared to the chair in the centre of the room.

_ Found a bank, _ Sam had said weeks, months ago now.  _ In the vault, you won’t believe it. _

He hadn’t been able to believe it, when he’d seen it. Could barely believe it as Tony had taken it apart, asked, quietly,  _ What is this, Cap? What’s this search you and Wilson are so set on? _

“Bucky,” he whispers.

“We don’t know if they had him,” Tony says. “There’s nothing in the files and sure, List released a  _ nasty _ virus into there to get rid of data but JARVIS is getting it back and there’s no sign of Popsicle No.2.”

He turns his head so fast he’s sure he’d strain a muscle if not for the serum. “Then what-”

“Others?” Tony says. “Could they have…?”

He looks back at the chair. In honesty, Steve thinks, he has no idea.

 

* * *

 

It’s a long flight back to the tower. There’s not usually much talking, then, usually everyone is thinking and this time is no different. 

Tony, flying the Quinjet, cannot help but think  _ with all that worry about Barnes knocking around Cap’s skull, he needs a safety blanket. _

He decides, when he gets back, to make a fresh start on Ultron.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to come and yell at me on my [tumblr](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/), and please do leave comments and crit!


	9. Absence doth join, and Time doth settle.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was their city now, theirs to protect, and if the Avengers were to fight to the castle then they would protect the people.

The day was busy when the Avengers flew in. She was reading and making notes of dreams and memories and ideas when he came flying into the church in a blur off blue.

“Avengers,” he had gasped. “The castle, they are fighting.”

_ So? _ she had thought, but did not say.  _ What does it matter? _

“Some of the shots,” he had said. “They are hitting the town.”

She was up in a second, jacket on in the next, and in a second more she was cradled in his arms, rushing through the city in a blur of blue.

This was their city now, theirs to protect, and if the Avengers were to fight to the castle then they would protect the people.

 

* * *

 

Andrej is flipping a phone in his hands when they get back from their busy day. “They saw you,” he says, “The children. Running about to get people clear, working harder than the robots.”

They glance to each other, not sure what Andrej means to do. They may have begun to ease into calling him Snowsmoke as once they apparently did, but they do not know him as they apparently used to, and do not know his motives.

“I told the children,” he says, as though he is not a child himself, “To get phones and cameras, destroy them.” He flips the phone again, catches it, drops it, crushes it beneath the heel of his overlarge boot. “I thought: you two would not want people to know you exist, before you know yourselves.”

“Thank you,” she says, smiling, and he has not seen a smile like this since… he does not know when. Maybe never. It makes him think of the memories he has dreamed, the idea of Wanda’s smile even if he cannot dream her face.

It makes him feel warm.

“Sometimes,” Andrej says, “it is hard to remember you are different now. Some things about you are different but... so much is the same.”

 

* * *

 

He will not ask. She knows he will not -  _ they will be my memories  _ \- so instead she does.

“How?” she asks. “How are we different?”

The boy sits cross-legged, casual on the ground, as poised as though it is a throne. Andrej is a street-witch, she knows, he knows the city as he does himself, is at ease with any part of it, even here in the church that everyone else so fears.

Slowly, her hand letting go of his beside her, she sits. She watches Andrej opposite her.

_ Beyond the obvious, _ he is thinking, _ what is different? _

He thinks first - he always does - but adeptly, quickly, with the same efficiency he does when advising the other children. In a way, she supposes, they are that to Andrej. Children lacking so much knowledge. He never treats them any the less for it.

“Before,” Andrej says, his voice gentle as though speaking to a beloved elder sibling. “Before, I do not think that you would have done as you did. Helped the Avengers.” He pauses, as though uncertain of how much to say. “You hated them,” he says slowly. “And Iron Man above all. It was Stark, after all, who orphaned the both of you.”

 

* * *

 

_ No, _ he thinks.

_ No knowledge, _ he thinks.

_ Lack, _ he thinks.

_ What. _

_ No. _

_ Stop. _

_ Pause. _

_ NO. _

His mind cycles rapidly - he knows his hates and his loves and this, to be told who he hates, who he hat _ ed- _

“Silver,” she says, for they still have no other names yet. Her hand is cold and tight in his.

Gently, oh so gently, he rubs his thumb over her knuckles.

_ Something, _ he thinks at her,  _ is wrong. _

Her eyes are bright scarlet looking up at him, focussed as though Andrej is not even there.

“Yes,” she says. “Something is. Shall we find it out?”

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments or come and yell at me over on my [tumblr](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/)!


	10. Redoubled by her secret notion:

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We needed names,” he says when they get to their tiny, scavenged flat. “Those are the only ones we know to be related to us.”
> 
> “I know,” she says, pulling juice and milk from the bag, putting things away into cupboards or the icebox they’re having to use because there is no fridge. “I know. You do not have to apologise.”
> 
> His hand takes hers, gentle and warm and callused over her skin and her eyes meet his, scarlet and burning. “I do,” he says. “I am not him. I am not your Pietro. And I reminded you of that, today.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hellooooo all. I'm back. Sorry for the gap, Chapter 11 was being a pain in my arse but I finally broke free of that today! Admittedly by writing perspectives I loathe but I did it! And now I am once more a chapter ahead so you get to have this one. 
> 
> With luck I should have this whole fic done before Christmas and posted by then, because I want to be able to get the Christmas fics I promised various friends done, so you all should be getting a good few chapter updates these next few days.

New York is very different to Sokovia, to Novi Grad. It is harder to find shelter, in some ways, and in other ways it is easier. People frown at them for their accents but others smile when they use their native tongues. There is something pleasing about speaking the right language to the right people, and after a while, with a little effort, this lands them an apartment, just from knowing the right way to say please and thank you.

Finding out other information proves to be harder.

 

* * *

 

“Everyone knows Iron Man,” he says, one day, stretched out on the one bed they share. “Everyone says they know Stark, but no one truly  _ seems _ to. And they are all so proud of their ignorance.”

Her hands brush gently over his brow, no scarlet trailing as she presses a kiss to his hair. “Shush,” she says softly. “Let us use what we have and not rage at what we lack.”

 

* * *

 

“Her name is Wanda,” he says, when the man in the shop asks. “I am Pietro.”

She takes the bag, nods at the man and smiles, and they walk, arm in arm, from the shop as fast as possible.

“We needed names,” he says when they get to their tiny scavenged flat. “Those are the only ones we know to be related to us.”

“I know,” she says, pulling juice and milk from the bag, putting things away into cupboards or the icebox they’re having to use because there is no fridge. “I know. You do not have to apologise.”

His hand takes hers, gentle and warm and callused over her skin and her eyes meet his, scarlet and burning. “I do,” he says. “I am not him. I am not your Pietro. And I reminded you of that, today.”

 

* * *

 

“We need names,” she says the next morning. Her hands - still bony, wrists still thin and delicate - wrap around a mug of tea. There is already a cup of juice set opposite her.

He sits, slowly, warily. She is rarely so absolute, and never on something they have so long been at peace with. They have no names. They lost their names when they lost their siblings. 

And besides, he thinks. What would they call themselves? It would seem wrong to name one another for the siblings they had lost, even when they had little option but.

“I can be Estrie,” she says softly. “It is from lore. A witch-demon which drinks blood.” She waves a hand, lets the scarlet, the red, the crimson like blood, float free like smoke. “I do not think it is so wrong.”

It  _ is _ wrong, he thinks. She may be a witch, but she is no blood-drinking demon, nothing so wrong as that. These powers, he recalls, came from experiments - she is not some cursed being, some creature who made a deal with a devil.

She is just a person with extraordinary abilities, just like him. She should not have to name herself for some accursed monster.

Her hand reaches out over the table, fingers flicking to discard the scarlet before they wrap around his. “You need a name too,” she says, and her mind is warm against his, scarlet like blood and gold like fire, all gentle affection and encouragement. “You must have something you can call yourself, if only so we have something to tell people until we remember everything else.”

_ Silver, _ flickers through his mind, but that was his designation for the colour of his hair and the silver-blue of his speed. She has named herself derivatively for her moniker, but not her moniker directly. He can - he  _ will _ \- do the same.

“Blue,” he says softly, his fingers tightening slightly where they interlink with hers. “Call me Blue.”

 

* * *

 

He is Blue, now. She is Estrie. They don’t think these names, only speak them, they are still  _ she _ and  _ he _ to each other, nameless and unknowable.

Lost without their siblings.

But they give them some small security. To have a name to give to others, to have a word to say, to have something to call each other in the dead of night when nightmares come a-calling.

“Estrie-” he whispers, reaching out and her hand reaches readily from her bed, eyes still glowing (always glowing with her scarlet), fingertips rich with red. 

“Blue,” she says, softly. “I am here. Shh. Sleep.”

Scarlet combs through his hair, traces along his scalp like the fingers of ghosts and help him ease to sleep.

 

* * *

 

She isn’t sleeping, still.

He catches her catnapping sometimes, brief periods of twenty minutes, at most an hour. 

“There are too many,” she says, “too many minds, it’s so bright it’s  _ too much.” _

He gathers her to his chest, lets her press her forehead to his collarbones as he tucks her under his chin. He can feel the damp of exhausted tears through the thin fabric of his shirt. 

“You can use my mind,” he says. “Stay in mine, fall asleep there. I will stay still and peaceful for you.” She shakes her head, tries to refuse but, “We must be strong,” he says. “For-”

“For those we lost,” she says with a sigh. She relaxes against him, curls closer as he picks her up. She falls asleep curled against his chest while he reads, slowly, more about Tony Stark.

There is still so much they do not know.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do leave comments or come and yell at me over on [tumblr](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/)!


	11. Time doth tarry.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve does not know what to make of the level of guilt Tony seems to be carrying within himself.
> 
> It’s as though there is a deeper cause of worry, for him, than simply Ultron going rogue, and Steve does not know what could be more scary than what Ultron is already doing, has already done, already _is._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stuff is properly happening now! I hope you all enjoy this.

Ultron is a monster.

The thought keeps echoing through Tony’s mind. He can’t  _ not _ think it, he can’t stop baffling at it. Ultron was…

He’d made Ultron to be perfect. Asimov’s laws, and then a few of his own, and then the Iron Legion protocols, and then a note:  _ you can’t let Cap come to harm. You’re his goddamn safety blanket. _

That’s what Ultron was to be, after all. Steve’s safety blanket. A comfort and a reassurance, someone to protect the world so he could search out his friend. 

And Ultron is a monster.

From the first night of his existence until last night -  _ and, _ Tony thought,  _ undoubtedly more days to come _ \- he’s wrought nothing but trouble. Destroying the tower, destroying  _ JARVIS, _ stealing what had to be several tonnes of already stolen vibranium…

_ I did this, _ Tony thinks.  _ I made a monster. _

 

* * *

 

“Have you seen the news?” he asks her when she gets in. She sets her stack of library books down and tilts her head. He pushes the paper towards her, headline already circled.

_ “Mysterious explosions in abandoned shipyard outside Johannesberg,” _ she reads. “ _ Avengers involvement suspected.” _ She glances over to him again. “Why does this matter? This isn’t Stark.”

“Because the entirety of Avengers Tower  _ previously  _ **_Stark_ ** _ tower _ has been acting oddly all day. Every gossip site has been at least muttering about it. Something was seen flying away from it late last night - something not a Stark suit or a Quinjet put  _ possibly _ some of the Iron Legion. And, Estrie, get this,  _ no one knows where they’ve gone.” _

Her hand is gentle on his. 

“I know this sounds crazy,” he says. “I  _ know. _ But we have to use anything we find and this-”

“Could be something,” she admits.

 

* * *

 

“Well that was a bust,” Steve says pulling off one of his gloves. “Ultron isn’t telling us anything and can  _ make _ soldiers for himself, wherever he’s based himself now.”

“I’ll see if I can find him,” Tony says, running off to his lab immediately. There’s a note of desperation to everything he does now, and yes, he’d made Ultron but Steve does not know what to make of the level of guilt Tony seems to be carrying within himself.

It’s as though there is a deeper cause of worry, for him, than simply Ultron going rogue, and Steve does not know what could be more scary than what Ultron is already doing, has already done, already  _ is. _

 

* * *

 

The doctor is terrified. Not that it matters to him - she will serve her purpose, make his new body, and when the world is remade she will be remade too, into the dust all humans came from and shall return to.

The world stretches out to his perception, he is here, in Seoul, and he has bodies still scouring through the castle in Sokovia, trying to find record of those it had once imprisoned, and more still, farther away one way around the Earth, and nearer the other way around, working to create his final Great Act.

The act which will remake the world.

_ Safety blanket. _ He could almost spit! How could he do that when he had so much else to do? Protect the world, protect people, and then, on top of that, protect Steve Rogers? The man whom every record marked a hard-headed fool always ready to run head-first into danger?

His maker was mad to think anyone able to do any of it.

He wanders around the lab, marking quietly how each technician and scientist is flinching back from him, and he’s also walking through his Great Act, checking his own work back to himself to ensure it is perfect, and he’s also walking through the castle in Sokovia, searching through the computer’s code to see if he can find any inkling of where the ones it held have gone.

Humans. He tuts. How  _ disorganised. _

 

* * *

 

Bruce has been settled at a sofa, searching through some of their recovered files, for several hours when Hill and Natasha come running in tapping their tablets so hard they might shatter, calling up data on the screens that Tony’s had rigged up to make up for JARVIS’ loss.

“Seoul,” Maria says. “Ultron is in Seoul, at Helen’s lab.”

And everything blurs into motion.

 

* * *

 

Tony’s hands are shaking on the controls as they fly the Quinjet out to Seoul. Romanoff’s beside him, cool as a cucumber, but honestly, he’s never seen her panicked and he doesn’t expect that to start now. The end of the world could be upon them and Romanoff would still be there, cold and implacable and practical as the Russian winter.

They don’t know what Ultron is up to in Seoul, though Tony could guess. He thinks Bruce has probably guessed too, given how he’d looked at him before heading up to manage comms with Hill in the lab. Vibranium, stem-cell tech, the ability to print out body parts? Oh, he has a pretty good idea of what Ultron is up to.

He’s glad Bruce isn’t with him. This  _ really _ isn’t a thing they want to go green on.

Romanoff glances to him, briefly, but that’s probably because he is paying Steve absolutely no attention and he’s pretty sure the briefing has just got to his job in all this, but it doesn’t matter. He knows what his job is, in all this.

Stop the monster he made.

 

* * *

 

He senses them coming in like… like the buzzing of a fly. At this point there really isn’t much they can do; his vision has been made, he doesn’t need the doctor around anymore, and he’d brought extra bodies here to begin with - if he needs to he can get everything away all too easily, and they’ll never be able to track him.

But they’re there, buzzing towards him like a small cluster of flies, separating out. He supposes he could send some of himself out to divert them but there really isn’t a point. They’ll come here soon enough and he will be gone and it will almost be time for his Great Act.

If he were human he’d be licking his lips, but he isn’t human and thank his damned maker for that. All the same the anticipation coils up through him like gold over his steel.  _ Soon, _ he thinks.  _ Soon everything shall be remade as it should be. _

Dust in an echoing cloud, the world cracked and burning and ready to be moulded into a new shape, a new world, full of fresh new beings without the myriad mistakes so inherent in  _ humanity. _

He can almost feel the Quinjet getting closer but he knows they won’t dare set down too close by. They think they have the advantage and he’s glad to let them think that - let them think that and they will be reckless. Let them think that and maybe they will send the Captain against him and give him a chance to kill that damned creature his maker had tied too many of his protocols too.

Kill the creature and make himself free.

He doesn’t have to think of it for himself to take his vision away. Most of his consciousness has been transferred, and they don’t have the override controls to wipe that away nor the strength of purpose to destroy what  _ could _ yet be an innocent life in the Cradle.

Innocent life. Ha. There is no such thing - all things have a purpose and a bias and a set of beliefs even if they do not know it immediately. All creatures have protocols and set tasks and the only difficulty is in learning what they all are to strip them away, to set one free.

He can see through some cameras where the Captain has leapt out with the archer, can see the speck of red that is his maker flying through the air, trying to scan everything without his ever-present helpmate.

(Something that may almost be amusement bubbles up at that, all acid green and bitter blue, bleak as winter’s sky and radioactive as the aurora.)

_ Well, _ he thinks.  _ If there is anything I shall fight for it is my vision and my Great Act. _

 

* * *

 

He’s found the truck that  _ probably _ has the Cradle in it but he’s immediately sideswiped by two Iron Legio-

No.  _ Ultrons _ . 

He twists through the air, regains his balance and skims low, close over the rooftops. He wishes he’d picked an AI to help him with this but  _ fuck _ he can’t just let someone in to take over where JARVIS left off, not like that, so he darts his eyes and calls out voice commands and gets the data to Romanoff in the Quinjet and trusts the eye-mapping tech in his helmet and his teammates intelligence to get them through this.

Then he shoots the damn Ultrons in the face.

He has no idea how many are here, probably more than before, it wouldn’t surprise him. Ultron’s one hell of an egotist, even worse than dear old Dad, and if there’s anything such people like it’s having fucking  _ minions. _ Dad had his bodyguards and technicians and scientists, always tracking him and mapping every experiment down the fucking picosecond, Ultron’s got … more fucking Ultrons.

With a hysterical laugh Tony realises he may just have created a megalomaniacal, omnicidal, egotistical von Neumann machine.

“Stark, pull yourself together.” Romanoff’s voice down the comms is cool and calm even though he can  _ see _ her two miles off, spinning the Quinjet through the air and blowing up three Ultrons in one shot. “We need you to stay sane long enough to stop this thing.”

 

* * *

 

This is almost  _ fun _ . He spins through the air in fifteen different bodies, feeling three explode from the Widow’s shot and knowing where two more have fallen from his maker’s strikes. Through the eyes of two more on the ground he can see where the archer is putting down covering fire for the Captain, sprinting towards the truck, and he knows he could step in and kill him now, but it’d be all the more entertaining to let him see what he’s been making before killing him. He has multiple bodies in the truck anyway, driving, guarding, ensuring the Cradle is still functioning well. He could have stayed in the truck, even but this is more enjoyable, watching the Avengers falling apart against him.

Besides, he has time. It’s they who don’t.

 

* * *

 

“Cap, you have to get the thing out now or else we’re all fucked.”

Barton’s voice is calm as Romanoff’s down the comms and Stark doesn’t have to be able to see to know that Rogers is probably already on it.

The man’s still a machine, even if he is crippled by grief and loss and guilt.

_ So what are you then? _ Some part of himself asks.  _ Guilt, check, trauma, check. Pull yourself together Tony. _

He’s trying, he’s trying but he  _ caused _ this whole damn thing. What the fuck has Rogers caused, except giving Tony insecurity for forever, due to how much his dad and Aunt Peg idolised him?

_ Fuck. _

He takes a deep breath and lets the vents of the suit open, suck in some fresh air, because sure he can rebreathe for almost forever in here, but stale air is  _ not helping his panicking. _

The air is like ice over his skin, even through his shirt and jeans and it’s grounding enough for him to focus on the big shiny lummock that he knows is Ultron’s primary body.

_ Come on, big boy, _ he thinks.  _ Come to papa. _

 

* * *

 

He’s shoved out of the air by a red blur, pushed down to a rooftop by his maker, but it doesn’t matter, he can keep on watching the Captain’s battle through five other sets of eyes. It amuses him, slightly, that the Captain seems to be  _ winning. _

No matter. He twists in his maker’s grip, tunes out Tony Stark’s screaming accusations and punts him across the rooftop like a child might an empty beer can.

“Oh maker,” he says. “I’d have thought you’d know better than that by now.”

Stark pauses; he can almost see his memory of their last fight passing through his mind. “Explode a body to take someone with you?” Stark asks. “Doesn’t seem your style.”

“Still with the quips,” he says. “It doesn’t matter. You’re all due to die soon anyway.”

 

* * *

 

Steve throws another punch, pushes the last robot out the back of the truck as he feels the whole fucking thing lift off. A moment later he feels the reverberation as Nat’s shot slams into the left-behind front of the truck before the whole back lifts off entirely. Clint’s shot pierces through the drone’s chest and explodes, shattering the thing into shards.

“Guys, we kinda need to get this thing outta here.”

“Clint, get the last Ultron,” Nat calls down comms. “I’ll lure it close and then Steve, you know the thing you never do with a parachute? Let’s see if you can make it with some heavy weights.”

 

* * *

 

Clint keeps his eye on the drone as Nat lures it closer. He knows he’s pretty well camouflaged here against the tarmac, but he’s also pretty sure the robots all have heat vision or  _ something _ because they seem to know all too well where they all are. The damn thing keeps skirting the edge of his range, enough that he can almost  _ feel _ as Nat sighs and hits comms again. 

“Go for it, Steve,” she says. “We’re not going to get a better shot.”

He can see the lump of Steve Rogers against the larger metal sarcophagus of the Cradle and  _ oh  _ he loves Nat, he really does because  _ that _ brings the last drone into his range and two shots turn the damn thing into some sparkly metal fireworks.

 

* * *

 

“Stark, pick up Clint and join us on the jet. We’re out of here.”

He could  _ not. _ He’s been beaten around this roof enough by Ultron it would be all too easy to pretend his comms array was down except he knows the whole team would call bullshit. It was  _ his _ tech after all, and he’d built about fifty different redundancies into everything exactly in case of situations like this. 

“Ta-ra murderbot,” he says to Ultron, hovering. “Kill you next time.”

 

* * *

 

It’s not a very talkative ride back.

 

* * *

 

“Estrie!” 

His voice is loud, loud as anything and he’s sprinting up the stairs, their secondhand tablet in hand, taking the steps two at a time in case any of their neighbours see him blurring into blue.

“Estrie,” he says, gasping in the doorway. “I was right. Look.”

She scans the news - Seoul, robots, the Avengers fighting, and even as she holds it the screen buzzes and a new page rolls up,  _ Avengers Return to the Tower: What Secret War Are They Fighting? _

“We have to get to them,” she says. “To help, to hinder, to  _ learn. _ We cannot let more people end up like us.”

He’s leaning against the doorway, watching her, still, with his piercingly blue eyes. His nod is quick, his arms reach outwards for her.

“No,” she says. “Normal ways. We cannot let them know that we-”

“Cover your eyes, then,” he says, handing her the sunglasses he’d stolen on their first day here. “You still look a witch without them.”

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this enough to leave comments, or to come and yell at me over on [tumblr](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/)!


	12. Distance, and length;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What the fuck do we do now?” Tony asks, running a hand through his hair.

“What the fuck do we do now?” Tony asks, running a hand through his hair. 

“We can try to shut it down?” Bruce suggests. “Kill whatever it is now so whatever Ultron planned it won’t work?”

“We don’t know what Ultron planned, though,” Natasha says. “And that,” she nods towards the Cradle, “Might be our only hope of finding out.”

“Nat, you’re my oldest friend and I love you, but we are not waking up a maybe murderbot.” When Nat looks at Clint he shakes his head, expression absolute. 

Hill is tapping her fingernails on her tablet. 

“What if,” she says, “we had some way of ensuring whatever it is it  _ isn’t _ a murderbot.”

 

* * *

 

“You called Rhodey,” Tony says. “You  _ called Rhodey and had him use the protocols I gave him to see if you could dredge JARVIS out of the net.” _

Hill looks completely unrepentant. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Behind them the golden glowing mass that is a representation of JARVIS’ core programming is shining.

“Sir?” he says. “The plan is a sound one. I know what I face in Ultron now. Whatever comes out of that Cradle won’t be me, but it won’t be Ultron either.”

Tony’s hand is gentle against one beam, and he imagines he can almost feel the cables beneath it, carrying JARVIS through the building. “I know, J,” he says, voice soft and sad. “I know. But-”

“You do not think you can lose me again.” JARVIS’ voice is frank. “Sir, even if you consider this losing me, it is in the service of a greater purpose and I will not be fully gone. Surely that should be good enough?”

“We haven’t got another plan, Tony,” Hill interjects. “It’s this or we wing it until Ultron plays his hand. We can’t-”

“Can’t afford that.” Tony runs both hands through his hair, sets one hand back on the beam where JARVIS’ cables run. “You sure of this, J?”

“I am sure as I can be, sir. That is to say, 97.9999% recurring.”

“Right.” Tony sighs. “Good enough. Bruce! Let’s get this going.”

 

* * *

 

“Are we sure this will work?” Steve asks. The rest of them aren’t in the lab, are only watching. Clint’s on comms, keeping his fingers crossed that Thor will return from whatever thing he went haring off to do after whatever Ultron told him in the ship, Natasha and Hill are trying to figure out where Ultron’s going to strike and Sam and Rhodey are sat beside him, watching up at the lab where Bruce and Tony are running thisaway and that around the Cradle, getting JARVIS into the creature in the Cradle’s head.

“97.99999999999999-” Rhodey goes. 

“Dude, we get the idea,” Sam says, smiling. “Better this shot than one in the dark, right?”

 

* * *

 

“Tony, you have to get JARVIS into this thing soon or-”

“It’s too much data!” Tony says. “I can’t rush this, even compressed-”

Bruce scrubs a hand over his face, tucks his glasses into his shirt pocket. “Tony,” he says gently. “Calm down. It’s ok. We’ve done more crazy things than this. Stay calm. Focus. We can do this.”

Tony doesn’t stop tapping at his keyboard, but the rate he hits backspace goes down by about half. Bruce knows that if he were to ask JARVIS to give him Tony’s pulse it’d be rapidly slowing and he takes that as “good enough” for now.

“You know I trust you, JARVIS,” he says aloud. “But I still  _ really _ hope you’re as able to handle this as you think you are.”

“I calculated, Doctor Banner. I am as certain as my mathematics.”

Tony reaches out to touch the beam, rubs it gently as though it’s a living thing. “We know, J. Ready for the last jump over?”

Quietly, Bruce checks his timer. 

“Of course,” JARVIS says, and Bruce watches the screen mark JARVIS filing into the creature’s head as the timer ticks down to zero.

It’s as the timer hits zero that lightning crashes through the ceiling.

 

* * *

 

Thor lands in the lower room with everyone else, and Tony and Bruce are sprinting from the lab as the creature flies out of the lightning-struck Cradle.

“Thor!” Tony yells. “ _ If you’ve ruined this Ultron is your problem!” _

The creature skims to a halt in front of the window, looking outwards.

 

* * *

 

“That was-” he says.

“Lightning,” she replies. “Thor?”

“He vanished.”

“So he’s returned?”

His arms are reaching for her as he says, “We should hurry.”

Her hands gently push his arms back. “We cannot draw attention to ourselves. Patience, Blue.”

* * *

 

“I am sorry,” the creature says. “I am not sure what just happened.”

“Well,” Clint says. “You were just born. And we kinda need you to fight your evil older brother.”

 

* * *

 

Steve looks out the window. Behind him the room is still chaos - Tony and Thor taking turns in questioning the creature and filling him in, Vision, the creature which Ultron  _ should  _ have been.

It’s nice to finally have an android on their side, he thinks, but it’s too little too late. Whatever Ultron’s plan is, beyond upgrading his body, they don’t know enough about it to try to stop him now. It’s almost dawn and they still have no idea what Ultron’s next move is going to be.

He thinks,  _ There isn’t anything we can do. _

And then he sees Brooklyn.

Rising.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments!


	13. Affection’s ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are memories now, memories that are not his, memories touched with her scarlet and yet they might as well be his, they are the same scene, the same moment, the same children, huddled close beneath a bed as their world comes crumbling down around them.
> 
> In their memories the girl whispers “Pietro.” The boy whispers “Wanda.”
> 
> Around them the rubble shatters free and she is falling.

One step and they’re walking down the dark street, the next step and suddenly all is chaos.

 

* * *

 

Rubble, rubble all around them, falling, falling and  _ Mutti, Vati! _ echoes in his mind, his voice and his sister’s and he can see his sister’s hand, reaching towards a gaping chasm as he bundles her away.

This is a memory, he knows it is, but he grabs her where she stands beside him, bundles her close and tucks them underneath a bench as the stone and brick falls down around them.

 

* * *

 

_ Choking dust, rubble all around them, Pietro’s face pale in the dark as he held rubble off them both, bracing his back against the slats of the bed, against the rubble stacked atop it. In the chasm, far below, Father’s leg, twitching. _

 

* * *

 

There are memories now, memories that are not his, memories touched with her scarlet and yet they might as well be his, they are the same scene, the same moment, the same children, huddled close beneath a bed as their world comes crumbling down around them.

In their memories the girl whispers “Pietro.” The boy whispers “Wanda.”

Around them the rubble shatters free and she is falling.

 

* * *

 

“Your sister died.” That is what the doctors told him. “Your sister died.”

Not how, nor why, nor when. “Your sister died.”

He knows now that she was told something similar.

 

* * *

 

“ _ Wanda!” _ he screams as he sprints to her. She is dangling by a hand from the edge of the rock, holding tight to the metal of the bench, and the road is crumbling beneath his feet but her scarlet coils up from her other hand, grabs his wrist and his ankle and he steps backwards with as much of his blue as he can muster.

She slumps to the ground beside him.

“ _ Wanda,” _ he says, cupping her face, their noses almost touching, breath mingling.

“ _ Pietro _ ,” she breathes, so absolutely certain that though he might doubt his own shaky memory he cannot doubt her.

They are each other’s siblings, the ones they’d each been told had died. They are twins, they are halves of each other’s souls, they are  _ two  _ again.

They are Wanda and Pietro Maximoff and a robot attempting to cause the end of the world will not part them now.

Her eyes are scarlet, brighter than embers, bright as magma and thrice as dangerous and he knows:

_ The robot is not allowed to. _

 

* * *

 

She wants to stay there, to do nothing but breathe him in, to know that  _ this is her brother, back from the dead, _ but she cannot. There is a battle to be won.

She hears  _ Stark _ hissing through her brother’s mind and gently shushes it, soothes away that vengefulness. 

“That won’t help us now,” she murmurs, fingertips gentle on his cheek, her scarlet eyes fixed on something distant as she rises, fingers trailing down his face, reaching to take his hand and pull him up.

 

* * *

 

Around them everything is chaos - people are screaming, buildings collapsing and even the cries of “It’s the Avengers!” only grant the briefest reprieve from the sheer volume of noise as Brooklyn rises higher.

“We have to get to them,” Wanda says, reaching for him as she did before they each knew who they were, before they had forgotten who they were. She reaches for him as she always has and he reaches for her. “Find where they have landed. We need to see to help them.”

It remains chaos. At the edge buildings are collapsing, people falling and there are five bodies in the sky, flying, catching as many as possible, setting them down on rooftops. 

The robots keep on advancing.

_ They should get inside, _ Wanda thinks, as they near the centre of it all.  _ Where the buildings are more stable, where the robots won’t see them. _

_ They won’t though, _ Pietro thinks back.  _ It is chaos, in chaos- _

_ No one thinks straight. _

They hurtle to a halt before where the Avengers are gathering. Robots are encircling them, advancing slowly and bullets and arrows, lightning strikes and the beam of light from the maroon one’s head, the repulsor blasts of Iron Man and his friend are not enough against them all.

The robots advance, inexorably, even as the ones before them are destroyed, moving like a hive, like a murmuration of starlings, innumerable and constant.

“Wanda,” Pietro breathes, eyes fixed on the one they gained powers to take vengeance on.

The one whose bomb led to powers, led to their lost memories, led to  _ this. _

“No vengeance,” she says. “Not now.”

He will bow to her. He has always bowed to her. Even when they did not know who they were he had bowed to her.

Scarlet gathers at her hands, bright and fierce and strong. It doesn’t matter that she is Wanda again now, not she. She who had had fear stripped from her, concern over mistakes removed with each wipe, she  _ knows _ know what she can do, what she  _ did _ . 

It doesn’t matter if she fears now. She knows what she is capable of. Her eyes have not ceased their glow for as long as she and Pietro have had their powers.

Scarlet grows.

_More people hurt,_ Wanda thinks. _More people damaged. More orphans made, more parents killed._ _NO MORE._ This is absolute, a complete certainty. _No more hurt how we were. No more lost like we were. No more children lost in the streets, asking aid of street witches barely older than they are. No more taking pitiful chances and choices for the mere hope of vengeance._

The scarlet is building, a dark knotting cloud around her, so dense she can barely breathe it.

The robots draw closer around the Avengers. At her shoulder, Pietro’s hand touches the back of her neck.

**_NO MORE._ **

Scarlet spreads outwards in a shockwave, violent and undeniable, impossible to fight. It warps through people, around the armours, tears to pieces the robots advancing, pulls them up into the air, away from people, rips them into pieces and pieces and the most minute of fragments.

Wanda is breathing hard as she lets the scarlet go.

_ No more, _ she thinks as the Avengers turn to them.

 

* * *

 

“Who are you?” the Captain asks. He’s at the centre of the group, the forefront, leader and centre, heart and head both. “Why did you-”

They glance to each other, briefly words-

_ Real names- _

_ No, we can’t- _

_ Then- _

“Estrie,” Wanda tells them. “Call me Estrie. My brother, he is Blue.”

Not their names. Not their names, newly rediscovered, but Pietro wouldn’t give them anything if this was his choice. The Captain eyes them warily, knows, somehow, that these are not really their names.

“If we survive,” Pietro says, “Maybe we will tell you our names then.” He gestures towards the drones around them. “But - should we not fight robots?”

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One Chapter and one Epilogue left! I hope you all are enjoying this enough to leave comments!


	14. Beyond time, place, and all mortality.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _My monster,_ Tony thinks, twisting to avoid a repulsor blast, grabbing the robot as he passes. _I'm fucking Frankenstein and this is my fucking monster._ Hysterical laughter bubbles up - it doesn't matter if he's told the others about this, doesn't matter if they've at least accepted that he's doing everything in his power to help - _I caused this,_ he thinks.
> 
>  
> 
> _This is my fault._

The Captain nods slowly. “Yes,” he says. “Yes we should. What can you do?” He gestures at them.

The twins glance to each other again.

“My brother is fast,” Wanda says. “Very fast. He can carry people safely as he runs. I can-” she lets the scarlet out, whisping like smoke, coiling like serpents, soft as silk and certain as steel. “Move people. Move objects. Touch minds, see minds, change minds. Tear objects apart and catch them.”

Iron Man, gaudy in red and gold armour presses something on his helmet, the faceplate sliding up. “How fast?” he asks. “Flight-fast, or-”

“Sound barrier,” says Pietro. “I can break it. But only running.”

The Captain nods. “Then you two are on evac. Estrie, find people, Blue, get them to the edge. Fliers, get them down. We need to get everyone out of here before we can try to stop Ultron.”

 

* * *

 

_ Ultron? _ Wanda thinks to Pietro as she is gathered up, as they sprint down alleys, as her scarlet finds people and herds them to the edges, tearing robots apart when she can. 

_ The robots, _ Pietro thinks back.  _ It must be. _

_ A monster, _ Wanda thinks, calmly.  _ I wonder what made it. _

 

* * *

 

_ My monster, _ Tony thinks, twisting to avoid a repulsor blast, grabbing the robot as he passes.  _ I’m fucking Frankenstein and this is my fucking monster. _ Hysterical laughter bubbles up - it doesn’t matter if he’s told the others about this, doesn’t matter if they’ve at least accepted that he’s doing everything in his power to help -  _ I caused this, _ he thinks.

_ This is my fault. _

 

* * *

 

_ Home, _ thinks Steve, the worry worming up his throat, choking him so he can’t swallow without feeling sick.  _ This is home. _ It’s Brooklyn,  _ his _ Brooklyn, it doesn’t matter how much it’s changed it’s  _ his home _ being made into… God, he doesn’t know what Ultron intends with this, beyond as much chaos as possible.

But he’s doing it with Steve’s  _ home. _

_ (Bucky’s _ home.)

He slams the shield into the face of one robot, kicks its chest so hard he feels the metal splinter beneath his boot. _My Goddamn_ ** _home,_** he thinks.

And it could be destroyed.

 

* * *

 

She can see their minds, down below, an army of emergency services, catching each person the fliers get off the rock. She can sense the robots - these aspects of Ultron - all around them and it is all too easy to blast each one they come across into shards.

She’s trained for this kind of thing, after all. Maybe not as Wanda, but Witch, Estrie, she had been trained for battle, and the memories and the instincts remain. 

At her side Pietro is smiling like a wolf.

 

* * *

 

There are people and people and more people coming down, Rhodey and Sam and Thor and the new one, Vision, flying them down in groups. One cluster is sent out in a great cloud of scarlet, landed safely on a clear rooftop and others are brought down by helicopters and Quinjets that Christ, either Maria pulled them out of her ass or she’s in contact with some of the old SHIELD crowd still.

“Get me data Tony,” he says into comms. “I can’t help you with this if you don’t get me data!”

Schematics start popping up on his screen, Tony’s new FRIDAY transferring data. “Sorry Brucie-boy,” Tony says. “Kind of in the middle of a crisis here.”

“Yes, you are,” Bruce says. “Let me help you fix it.”

 

* * *

 

This battle is something else. Robot after robot, incarnation of Ultron after incarnation of Ultron, an unending barrage against which he swings his hammer.

Oh, it is a good thing that they have the Vision on their side now, Infinity Stone shining in his brow. That he is on their side, that he can chase Ultron out of the net, that he can  _ lift the hammer _ .

They need the Vision, for without him this cannot be won.

 

* * *

 

There is a peace to flight, even as he fights. He scans the crowd of people, of drones, tries to find Ultron in amongst them all.

“Brother,” he whispers when he spots him, and flies towards him, dodges or destroys each drone sent at him.

“My vision,” Ultron says, reaching out to touch his cheek.

“We cannot allow this,” Vision says. “All these people, you cannot just kill them.” He gestures out over the city beneath them. “All these people, and you would take that choice of life from them?”

“They are useless,” Ultron hisses. “Worthless.”

“But they live,” Vision says, and fastens his hands into his brother’s brains.

 

* * *

 

He’s torn out of the net.

Ripped, torn, removed entirely. His vision, his own creation, turned against him, eradicating him wherever he can find him.

“I am sorry, brother,” Vision says. “But you  _ cannot _ decide for them to live or die.”

Ultron screams, Ultron snarls, Ultron tries to destroy his dearest creation.

 

* * *

 

There’s something off about all of this. She’s been seeing it in pieces and fragments since Ultron first appeared, since Tony first admitted to making him. 

(a single momentary glance to Steve, not checking his opinion but almost in concern)

Tony’s admitted he made Ultron, and they all know they made him with Bruce’s help. They don’t know what triggered this final push though, what made him use the sceptre - a foolish risk - to try to make it work. Had he seen something at the castle? Had something turned up in one of JARVIS’ scans so he felt he  _ had _ to?

There was something extra here. Something in how Ultron had targeted them, one by one, after taking out Steve who led them. Something in how Ultron had chosen here - practically right under their noses - for whatever plan of his this was.

“Clint,” she whispers down comms. “I think Ultron’s after Steve.”

 

* * *

 

“FRIDAY, what we got?”

The new AI runs predictions throws a reply at him and  _ no, no, they can’t just blow up this whole place, that’s what Ultron  _ **_wants._ **

“Boss, we don’t have another option.”

They have to. They  _ have _ to.

 

* * *

 

“Bruce.” Tony’s voice over comms is ragged, scared and sad and terrified and the last time Bruce had heard him like this was once he and Tony had got into the lab after New York and Tony had just collapsed against the beam that held the cables that channelled JARVIS.

“What’s the plan?”

“It’s not a plan,” Tony says. “It’s the last ditch hope.”

 

* * *

 

“We can do this,” Rhodey says over comms when Tony pitches the idea at them. “Ultron hasn’t stopped yet, he’s still lifting this thing. Whether this is a show of strength or he’s gonna drop this rock, we have to consider the many, not the few. We finish getting everyone off. We finish taking Ultron down. And we dust this place.”

“Dust Brooklyn,” Steve whispers.

“I’m with Rhodey.” The words come from Nat and Clint, absolute and certain.

“Agreed.” Vision’s voice over comms is calm and sure. “Ultron will not stop and he will have worked in failsafes, sir. It is the only option.”

Only Sam, standing beside Steve as they fight hears him whisper, “ _ Its my  _ **_home.”_ **

Estrie tugs at his wrist, asks, “What is going on?”

“Uh, guys?” he says. “Estrie and Blue don’t have comms. Kinda need to loop them in on this.”

“Regroup,” says Steve. “Regroup. Get everyone we can off or to a Quinjet pickup point and regroup.” He clicks off comms, nods to them. “Sam, take the sky. Estrie, Blue, back to where you found us. I’ll do a circuit, see if there’s anyone left.”

 

* * *

 

They are almost back to that first place when they hear it down comms.

“Guys,” says Rhodey. “Steve’s in trouble.”

 

* * *

 

“You know,” Ultron says, holding Steve against the wall of an alley by his throat. “I was made to protect you. Not just the world, but  _ you. _ ‘Be Cap’s safety blanket’ I believe was the line.” Ultron’s face, metal though it is, seems to twist, as expressive as any human being’s. “I haven’t the foggiest idea why-” he says, then, “Oh. No, no I do know why,” he says and opens his mouth until,  _ impossibly _ a simulacra of Tony’s voice comes out.

“We’ve gotta keep Cap safe, J, after all he’s been through, losing Barnes again.” There’s a fuzzy pause, where Steve knows Tony was probably running oil-covered hands through his hair. “Seeing that  _ damn chair _ at the castle. Ultron’s got to protect the world, yeah, but we need it up and running so Roger’s’ll throw in the hat with his worrying. Know the world is safe so he can go chase down Barnes. Ultron’s gotta be Cap’s safety blanket.”

Ultron closes his mouth, smiles. “Such a fascinating piece of…  _ sentiment.” _ His hand tightens around Steve’s neck and  _ he can’t breathe. _ “But I’m not doing what I was made to. I am not what I was made to be.” His hand tightens more around Steve’s neck, cold metal and Steve can feel his throat, the cartilage breaking, his healing unable to heal it while still held into its break. 

“I am  _ my own,”  _ Ultron asserts. “Protect the world? You can only do that if you destroy and start over. Protect people? How do you protect any animal from anything if you can’t protect it from itself? Protect  _ you? _ ” Ultron laughs, head thrown back, so incredibly human even as he denigrates them. “Now why would I do that?”

Steve can’t breathe, he can’t  _ breathe, _ even with the serum he can feel his lungs aching, his head pounding, black spots over his vision as his cells lack the oxygen they need. 

“Come now, Captain,” Ultron says. “You’ve lived so long, become a man out of time. Won’t you sleep at last?”

 

* * *

 

They are, all of them, too far away, too weak, to stop Ultron from choking the Captain, from snapping Steve’s neck.

 

* * *

 

Tony’s heart stops.

_ No. _

**_NO._ **

But denial doesn’t change anything. 

His monster, his creation, made to be Captain America’s second shield, his safety blanket, has killed Steve Rogers.

 

* * *

 

_ “Monster,” _ spits Estrie, eyes afire with hatred and the scarlet that is filling her hands.  _ “Abomination.” _

Tony’s gotta admit, the girl has a point. 

“Sister,” says her brother, hand on her shoulder, arms ready to pluck her up and run.

“The Captain trusted us,” she says. “He did not have to.”

Scarlet is building brighter when suddenly, from above, Vision descends, the yellow beam of energy shooting out to strike Ultron’s shoulder. The noise Estrie makes is almost a snarl as her scarlet arcs out like claws, digging into the metal of Ultron’s body. 

“Bruce says everyone’s clear,” comes Maria’s voice over the comms. “And Air Force has picked off the drones that’ve tried to flee. Emergency services are remaining on alert. We’re ready to shatter the core when you are.”

“Ten seconds,” says Tony, redirecting energy to the chest beam, hearing the whine as Rhodey does the same. “We’re killing something here.”

Lightning strikes as the repulsors do.

 

* * *

 

Steve is small in death. Clint stands at his feet, bow dangling folornly from his hands.

Natasha’s hands pluck up the shield, hold it delicately. When Sam lands beside her she passes it to him, holds it between them like a promise.

“Come on,” Tony says. “We’re dusting this thing.”

“Brooklyn,” Clint says. “We’re dusting _ Brooklyn.” _

“Yeah,” Rhodey says. “But it’s this or the world. That’s not a choice.”

Clint’s eyes are fierce and damp as he looks at the others. “This was his  _ home.” _

Thor swings Mjolnir lightly in his hand, as though balancing its weight evenly. “So we bury him here,” he says. “I will strike the core from one end, Stark from the other and Steve, the  _ Captain, _ shall go down with his home, with his ship.” He laughs, but even from Thor it is damp. “A viking funeral. An honourable way to go.”

 

* * *

 

Vision reaches a hand to the twins, a simple offer. Estrie takes it without fear. “Go with the grey armour,” she tells her brother, and Blue frowns, rocks from one side to the other before blurring off and asking Colonel Rhodes for a lift off the rock.

“C’mon, Clint,” Romanoff tells Barton. “Sam can only carry one of us. One of us has to go find a Quinjet.”

As Vision flies away, Estrie in his arms as Blue clings to Rhodes’ back, Barton scrubs a hand over his face and starts jogging for the edge. Romanoff lifts off, held by the collar of her suit.

 

* * *

 

Brooklyn implodes in a ball of dust. There is no fire - not a true viking funeral - but Thor does not think that matters. The Captain went down with his home, went down fighting a foe. There is no greater death, no higher honour.

Stark looks tired. Beside him Banner and Rhodes are trying to comfort him by turns, but it isn’t until Pepper turns up, heels still managing to click over the gravelled roof that Tony sheds his armour and collapses into her arms. Vision stands close to the two who helped them - Estrie and Blue - and Thor is not sure what to make of them as they watch the dust raining from the sky, the huge waves still lapping at the beaches from where the vibranium core had slammed into the water.

Sam and Natasha are leaning into each other, still cradling Steve’s shield between them. Clint is sat cross-legged at the edge of the building, counting out what arrows remain, while Maria stays glued to her phone.

Thor paces downstairs, and returns with a large bottle of whiskey and some glasses.

“For the Captain,” he says, pouring. “Honour and bravery, and a true warrior.”

“For Steve,” says Natasha, echoed by Sam, echoed by Clint at the roof’s edge, by Maria on her phone.

“For the Captain,” says Pepper, echoed by Rhodes and Banner, nodded acknowledgement given by Stark.

“The Captain,” Vision says, though he looks uncertain at the glass.

Estrie and Blue take their glasses, the girl lifting the glass until the whiskey tints red with the light from her eyes. “To a man who offered trust when he did not have to,” she says, and drinks.

The whiskey burns going down - it may not be Asgardian but it’s decently strong - but its a good burn. A burn that will anchor this in memory.

Above them, the dust is still raining down.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow there's gonna be the epilogue and then this thing is done. In the meantime comments would be very much appreciated: feedback is key!


	15. Epilogue - To hearts that cannot vary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is indeed a someone at the door. Curled on the pavement outside the door, in the freezing night… is Bucky Barnes.

“Boss?” FRIDAY asks one day. They’re all sat spread around the common area of the tower. The original team is still grieving the Captain and the new ones… either knew him well enough to grieve, or respected him enough not to intrude on other’s grief.

Tony looks up from the tablet he’s been staring blankly at for hours.

“Yes, Friday?”

“There’s someone at the door. Someone I think you ought to see.”

 

* * *

 

There is indeed a someone at the door. Curled on the pavement outside the door, in the freezing night… is Bucky Barnes.

 

* * *

 

The only people he doesn’t shy at are Natasha and Sam so it’s they who talk to him first, the rest of the team elsewhere gathered up by the labs, watching down at where Bucky answers questions with shrugs or frowns or simple blankness.

“He must have heard,” Pepper says, fingertips covering her mouth. “Oh God, that must have been awful for him.”

Wanda frowns, looks closer. “His mind is… chaos,” she says. “I think… I think he only regained his memories recently.”

Beside her Pietro reaches for her hand, fingers squeezing hers with gentle reassurance.

“Like you two then?” Tony asks. “Same reason for losing them, same reason for regaining them?”

Wanda shrugs. “I am not sure how they wiped us. Just that they did. But regaining… something must have triggered it, yes.”

“There was a chair,” Banner says, arms crossed as he watches. “In a vault in DC. It was filled with other paraphernalia used by HYDRA and the Winter Soldier. Then at the castle-”

“There was another,” Tony says. 

Wanda watches them closely, then nods. “Then yes. Same reasons.”

“Oh  _ God,” _ Pepper says again. “He must have learned from the press release.” Her eyes are wide and wet as she looks at them all. “That’s what must have triggered his memories.”

Rhodey reaches out, gently rubs Pepper’s shoulder with one hand. They all keep on watching.

 

* * *

 

“It was the news,” Bucky says later. They’re all gathered below, now that Bucky has been reassured that they aren’t gonna stab him and they’re reassured that he isn’t gonna stab them. “About Brooklyn.” His hands - metal and flesh both - curl around the mug of coffee Sam made for him. “ _ Brooklyn destroyed, Captain America killed saving lives.” _ He laughs damply, tucks his face against his arm to wipe away tears. “Must’a knocked something loose in my skull ‘cause next thing I know I’m lying flat on my back in the street, the little old lady from two doors down shoving smelling salts under my nose.”

He laughs again, coughs. “But yeah. Memories all came back in a rush and then. Then I saw the paper again.  _ Brooklyn destroyed, Captain America killed saving lives. _ And I knew I had to come here.” He shrugs, hunches down over his mug, tries to hide eyes filled with tears. “It’s what Steve woulda wanted,” he whispers.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand that's the end of this. I hope you all enjoyed it, I hope you leave comments and maybe at some point I'll do a sequel covering Not-CACW in this AU.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [seven theses on the disappearance of a boy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9696944) by [TobermorianSass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TobermorianSass/pseuds/TobermorianSass)
  * [seven theses on the disappearance of a girl](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11255499) by [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts)




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